Flotsam and Jetsam
by Cyberwolf
Summary: drabble 42: Cherry Syrup. Gift GaaTenSasu for Tao-chan.
1. nejiten::: abandonment

_Drabble collection. NejiTen, NaruSaku, SasuTen so far, and requests taken. NejiTen drabbles will most probably be from the 100 themes challenge. _

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abandonment – theme ninety

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Tenten wasn't surprised when Neji stopped coming to their private sparring sessions. He had the Kaiten now, the ultimate defense that rendered all her attacks worthless even more than the Sand-girl's winds. He had Hiashi-sama himself, head of the Hyuuga clan, to spar with him. He had the full facilities of his clan available to him.

He didn't need her anymore.

So she smiled and spoke easily with him when team-missions put the two of them in each other's paths. So she resigned herself to training alone, to the silence of lonely days and the echoes inside her own head.

After all, if her own parents hadn't wanted her – had seen fit to leave her, blanket-wrapped and bawling, on the stoop of the Konoha orphanage, with not even a name pinned to her blanket – why should anyone else?


	2. nejiten::: nightmare

_Notes: follows from previous drabble. _

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nightmare – theme forty-five

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Tenten was having a nightmare.

Neji could tell from the half-choked little sounds that escaped from her, the little beads of sweat that appeared on her furrowed brow. He could tell from the troubled expression on her sleeping face and the way her fists clenched into her sleeping-bag.

He could tell, with the experience of one with his own nightmares.

He knelt beside her and touched her on the shoulder. Tenten bolted upright, almost cracking Neji on the chin, and glanced around wildly with eyes that showed the whites, like a frightened foal's. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as her fear-starved lungs gasped for air.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing – _nothing!" _Tenten gasped, her eyes wide and glazed so that Neji wondered if she really saw him at all. She flinched away from the hand still on her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I won't…I won't make any more noise, I promise."

She curled back into her sleeping-bag, back to Neji. Within seconds she had assumed the stillness of a body in slumber – the ability to catch whatever sleep possible was early learnt by shinobi.

Neji continued to kneel by her side, unconsciously rubbing the hand she had flinched away from.


	3. narusaku::: green tea

_Notes: The following drabble is from the NaruSaku board's old drabble challenge. A list of five keywords were given every month and you could just let 'em rip. Exactly 100 words allowed. Two other linked drabbles to follow. _

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**green tea**

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She can remember everything about the last time she saw Naruto.

It had been sunset, everything cast in shades of red-gold, especially his wide, feverish eyes.

She had been barefoot. It made her feel very small compared to Naruto, even with him slumped and head-bowed.

She had prepared _gyokuro _green tea for him. She hadn't finished offering him a seat before he was babbling, a flood of terrified, anguished words.

Broken promises. Necessity. Friend-slayer. _Fratricide…_

She had hurled the teapot at his head; he'd dodged automatically and now a green tea stain discolored her wall.

She hadn't seen him since.


	4. narusaku::: non sequitur

_100 words drabble, sequel to Green Tea._

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**non-sequitur**

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"Stop being such a bitch."

Sakura stared at Ino. It had been too sudden for anger; she only felt surprise. "Excuse me?"

Ino glared at her. "It isn't _fair_, what you're doing to him. He _tried_ – so hard. Sasuke practically killed him. And Sasuke would have killed us _all_ after, if Naruto hadn't…"

"…he _promised _me."

"He promised to bring _Sasuke-kun_ back. I don't think…I don't think that was Sasuke-kun, anymore. That was Orochimaru's creature."

Sakura turned away. "…you have very nice roses today, Ino."

Ino almost snapped. But then she saw the hand clenching at thorns, and the tears.


	5. narusaku::: resilience

_Notes: last of the trio of linked NaruSaku 100-word drabbles. Next drabble is a lot longer - actually it should be a fic all its own - and it's back to NejiTen, my OTP._

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**resilience**

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Naruto wasn't recovering. After _that_ fight he'd been bedridden for weeks – worse, uncomplainingly so. He escaped only once, to talk to his last teammate – and after that he gave no trouble at all.

He was thinner, _quieter_, even when he began to take missions again. He did not move as much, did not fight so keenly, did not rise to friends' frantic taunts.

And during a routine mission a kunai slipped between his ribs.

But then Sakura wept over him when she heard; and the day after _that_, he was out and about, and played several pranks on his friends.


	6. nejiten::: sake

_Quite the longest one so far, hm? NOT connected to the previous two NejiTen drabbles; much lighter-hearted in tone. Not a oneshot, though._

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**sake – theme thirty-one**

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One sip of alcohol turned Lee into a whirling dervish of destruction. One sip of alcohol usually knocked Neji out for the duration. And Gai – well, Gai just wasn't an option.

So it fell to Tenten to lure their target out of the tavern. (And, as everyone knew but didn't point out, a pretty young girl had a much better chance of that than somewhat intimidating young men).

So Tenten went in, and Tenten got him out – but she had to drink quite a few saucers of sake in the process. There was a limit to what sleight-of-hand could do, especially when her target insisted on pouring her sake and lifting it to her lips himself, in full view of several other people.

As soon as she had him out in the dark alley behind the bar, pressing her against the wall so that his back was to the alleyway, a silent trio of taijutsu-users dropped from the shadows. Neji flashed forward, for once quicker than Lee, and hit several tenketsu on the target's body. Tenten wondered – woozily – if all of them had been strictly necessary, but as the man dropped to the ground and the unpleasant weight (and _stench) _of him was removed from her, she couldn't bring herself to care.

She leaned against the brickwork, letting her head fall forward in an effort to stop her vision from spinning. She could hear her teammates murmuring to each other quietly as they stood around the fallen target, and then the sudden cool whoosh of air caused by the leaping of shinobi at full speed. She shook her head in a failed attempt to chase away the haze, then prepared to push off from the wall to follow them.

Hands against her shoulders stopped her movement, and she looked up in surprise. "Neji?" she said quizzically, after squinting at the surprisingly blurry figure for a moment.

"Lee and Gai-sensei are taking _him_ to Konoha. Don't push yourself. We'll catch up with them later," Neji told her, shifting his hold on her shoulders into a carry that was half-embrace as Tenten swayed on her feet.

"Okay," Tenten mumbled, still dizzy. She vaguely felt herself being led – or carried – away from the alley. She took deep draughts of the cool evening air, appreciating the clean feel of it inside her head. She realized that Neji had brought them to a small park, and was leading her to a wooden bench, made of curved wooden slats and black wrought-iron.

She suddenly found herself sitting down on it, unsure whether Neji had pushed her or she had seated – or half-collapsed, more likely – herself. The wood felt cold through the thin silk of her red-and-gold dress, and she shivered.

"Are you cold?"

She realized that Neji was sitting beside her – not so much from any cognitive process as from the detection of a new source of heat. She nodded, instinctively drawing closer to his warmth.

"…here." She suddenly felt the weight of Neji's white jacket being draped over her shoulders. She hunched herself over, trying to curl into as small a shape as possible to get as much of her cold-shivering body under the warmth of the jacket.

"You're really shaking," Neji said, a tinge of worry entering his normally bland voice. It was true; Tenten, far from warming up, was now shivering so hard it actually hurt, jolting her spine and rattling her teeth together. Neji put his hands on her bare arms and began to chafe them gently.

Tenten, whimpering softly – Neji's jaw clenched at the unfamiliar sound – huddled closer to Neji, seeking out his body-heat as instintively as a puppy. She climbed blindly into his lap, Neji holding her hard as if trying to force his own life-force into her. She burrowed into his chest, shaking so hard that Neji had to tighten his hold on her.

Neji's eyes were soft as he tried to keep his partner from shivering, but his clenched jaw and stiff spine spoke of anger. He began to suspect that there had been a little extra _something_ slipped into Tenten's sake by their target. Something that reacted badly with Tenten's system, something _designed _to make her defenseless and weak.

He hoped Lee and Gai had put _him _in a solitary cell. It would make it easier for Neji to…visit _him_, later.

Neji held onto Tenten until her shaking died down, and her skin underneath his hands had begun to lose a little of the chill, clammy feel. Tenten breathed a long, shuddery sigh, and her tense figure curled against him relaxed a little, her shoulders slumping. Unconsciously, Neji echoed the sigh, one hand absent-mindedly stroking down an arm in a now-reflexive remnant of his earlier chafing.

Tenten's head was still spinning a little, but it had lost that manic quality that had made her feel as if the world was moving too fast; she could form thoughts again, though they were hazy and clouded. The cold no longer bothered her; in fact, tucked against Neji's body as she was, with his white jacket draped over her, she was feeling quite pleasantly warmed. Her limbs were heavy with a soft, sleepy lassitude, as if she had just finished a long sparring-session with Neji.

She turned her head slightly, and saw Neji's face in silhoutte as he stared into the sky. She gave another, more contented sigh and snuggled deeper into Neji, deciding that she liked the way he was slowly stroking her arm. She let her eyes return to Neji's face, admiring the clean lines of his profile.

She decided she wanted to kiss him. She asked herself why she'd never kissed him before, and her slightly dizzy mind searched in vain for an answer. For some reason – one she couldn't quite remember now – something had told her it would be a bad idea. She thought she had been very silly, because it seemed like an eminently good and desirable prospect to her now.

So she did.


	7. all the good ones

**_WARNING._**

_The following drabble is crack. The most cracked drabble I've ever written, also the first yaoi and the first sensei-student. It was a request - or something like - and personally I blame **Yami White Rain**, and possibly temporary insanity. _

_Dude, this involves Gai/Sasuke/Kakashi. And then Naruto in a het threesome. And then miscellaneous. _

_Understand? This is a very disturbing piece! Turn back! Turn back!_

_...Okay, you can't say I didn't warn you._

_**Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.**_

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**all the good ones

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"Kakashi-sensei…" Sasuke's voice was soft, and breathy, and he peered up at his taller sensei from under thick, dark lashes as full as a girl's. Everyone in Konoha had been slightly startled at how little Sasuke had grown, physically, during his two-year 'hiatus' in the Sound. The honor of 'shortest shinobi', once belonging to a runty Naruto (who now, smugly, stood a good six feet tall) now belonged to a slight, slender Sasuke who carried his lack of height with greater grace than his blond teammate. His skin was still clear and soft as a child's. He still had that propensity to wide-necked shirts that engulfed his form and made him look younger than he really was.

In other words, he looked really too much like jailbait, especially at the moment, for Kakashi's peace of mind.

"Yes, Sasuke-kun?" he asked casually, automatically flipping open his ubiquitous Icha Icha Paradise. This was a huge mistake, he soon realized, as he found himself staring at the yaoi doujinshi he had smuggled in under the bright orange covers. How had he forgotten he'd replaced the book last night?

"Kakashi-sensei….I want you. I've been dreaming of you for so long."

For a moment Kakashi thought that instead of hearing this extraordinary statement, he was reading one of his doujinshi's lines out loud. But when he saw Sasuke's expectant eyes, he realized he wasn't hallucinating.

"Er…Sasuke…" he began slowly, hoping like hell he wasn't drooling onto his mask. "You do know I am in a relationship with Gai?"

Sasuke resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It was difficult for anyone in Konoha _not_ to know this, considering the outrageous challenges/PDAs (often the difference could not be determined) the two engaged in everyday. The usual jokes of what Gai must be/do in order to make up for his less-than-bishonen looks were rendered obsolete almost nightly. Tsunade had a separate file just for complaints from their neighbors about the noise/sight/wouldn't someone _please_ think of the children.

"I know," he said instead. He took a deep breath, looked up at Kakashi again, and said in an even softer voice, "You're not the only one in my dreams, you know."

Kakashi jerked like someone had stabbed him in the foot. He grabbed Sasuke and then teleported away in a whirl of leaves.

* * *

That month, complaints to the Hokage's office doubled, with new urgent writings encouraging laws against child abuse. She reacted with a drinking binge as legendary as her skills, joined for the first time by her apprentice and by the heir-apparent to her position.

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"Goddammit," Tenten sighed, watching half-fondly and half-exasperatedly as Sasuke, carrying enough take-out sushi for three, flew by in the direction of Gai's apartment. "Why are all the good ones gay?" 

Neji, having just abandoned a spar with Lee when the Kazekage showed up in a flurry of sand, nodded absent-mindedly – then jerked in sudden realization. "Hey!"

"You're right, there _is _Naruto-kun – but Sakura and Ino are sharing him, and Hinata said they're not open to anyone else joining in," Tenten conceded.

"That's not what I meant!"


	8. nejiten::: secrets

_Aaaand we're back, ladies and gentlemen, to the usual staple of my ficcing diet, which is straight-up Nejiten. Actually maybe I shouldn't say I'm back, since the last drabble had a miniscule amount of that too - something I am evilly tempted to develop. A 'can Neji prove he's not gay when nearly all the males around him are?' ficlet. Hm._

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secrets - theme twenty-five

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"…and so, after all that, all he says is 'Maybe next time, not in the rain!' After all that! I can't take it any more! He's impossible, he's a frigging _statue_ who only looks like a human being. He doesn't feel, he can't possibly. _I give up!" _Tenten concluded her latest ten-minute rant on Hyuuga Neji and his ice-block ways with a dramatic up-flinging of her hands. As her hands were filled with kunai (whenever she was upset, she liked to have something deadly in her hands), this resulted in the ceiling suddenly gaining a thin blanket of edged steel. 

The other girls ducked a little in reflex, but were more worried about their friend. They had known, of course, that she'd had feelings for her coolly arrogant team-mate before even she had – Hinata had the Byakugan, and also Neji was her cousin; and Sakura and Ino had their own years of experience with unrequited crushes on dark-haired prodigies –so they felt they had a personal stake in this.

"You can't give up on him!" Ino insisted, shoving a bucket of cookies-and-cream-fudge-ripple-topped-with-marshmallows ice cream at the older girl. For a girl who took her figure as seriously as most people considered their last wills and testaments, Ino's refrigerator was always oddly full of the most decadent comfort foods known to man. Ino insisted it was for Chouji; the other girls pretended to believe her. "Not when you're _so close!"_

"Close to what?" Tenten said bitterly, scooping out a generous helping of ice cream. She bit into the cold confection with vicious force. "It's been _four_ years waiting for him to make a move; six of being team-mates. He hasn't ever shown the slightest amount of interest in me as a _person_, much less a potential girlfriend. He's never even asked my last name!"

Enthralled, Ino and Sakura leaned a little closer, hoping that one of the biggest mysteries of Konoha would be revealed; but Tenten only took another huge spoonful of ice cream and scowled.

"That's not true, Tenten-chan," Hinata said confidently, drawing the room's attention. "Neji-niisan talks about you all the time, at home. He's always saying that the younger ones – and some of the elder ones – should be more like you, that you're much better at weapons-skills than any of us, how much he likes having you on his missions – and how he dislikes it when you're not - and whenever anyone begins praising _their_ girlfriends he only sniffs and looks superior."

Well, that's what she'd liked to have said. Especially since all of it was true – even if some of that 'talking' consisted of subtle body language that only a Hyuuga could register. It was the thought that counted.

Unfortunately, Neji had sworn his cousin to secrecy, and so Hinata could only wiggle uncomfortably and bite her lip as Tenten tore into the ice cream and into the absent Hyuuga Neji with equal viciousness.

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_Had no idea how to close this. So we shall have to leave poor Neji in deep, though unknown, trouble with Tenten, and continue onto the next drabble. _


	9. ten for ten::: gravity

_written for the 'ten for ten' themes challenge on the nejiten comm. first of a series of linked drabbles._

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_**gravity**_

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For a moment she's glorious – soaring into the air, her body unbound by the demands of earth – surrounded by the winds of dragons that coil about her, the flash of weapons that manifest themselves at her bidding. The sun is hot and clear on her upturned face – she feels the immediate coolness when she turns away from it, faces downward to the world she left behind. 

They're staring up at her, as transfixed by the sight of her twisting like one of her own dragons as by the knowledge that she is about to hurl several hundred sharp things at them. She grins tightly – over the kunai clenched between her teeth - and lets go.

And when it's over, the ground beneath her is shining with the light of the sun being reflected off hundreds of bloody-bright blades – and Lee and Neji are running towards her, their mouths open in cries she cannot hear over the rushing of air in her ears – and she

is

falling.

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_next drabble: "listen"_


	10. ten for ten::: listen

_second in a series of linked drabbles for "ten for ten" themes_**  
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**(_listen_)**

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"Tenten – _Tenten. _Look at me – _look at me_, don't close your eyes!" He is not shaking her as his voice would indicate he would like to do – instead he is holding her carefully, gently – not letting the slightest motion jar her, protecting her with his arms as though they were as all-deflecting as his Kaiten. 

Lee is gone. He's heading back to Konoha at his best possible speed, his ubiquitous weights flung carelessly to the side where they now rest at the bottom of an impact-crater. They crushed several of Tenten's weapons in the process – Neji tries to think about the scolding Tenten will give Lee…later…when they're all gathered in their practice-grounds and Lee is grinning and Tenten is shaking her head and _everything will be back to normal._

But it's so hard to think about that when Tenten is limp in his arms, and her blood is spreading warm and sticky through his clothes, forming a clammy dampness on his skin. His Byakugan has activated reflexively, as it does in times of stress, and Neji wishes it hadn't because now he can see how weakly her chakra is moving through her body, faint whispers of energy, trailing off, fading…

He is shouting at her now, his voice loud and wild like it never is, and he is telling her things – like how the mission is complete, and how she killed over fifty men with one attack, and how stupid she was to do so – _why hadn't she waited for him_? He is telling her that Lee has gone to fetch help, and that everything is going to be all right (his voice trembles, and it is not because he is unused to talking like this)

He is telling her not to leave him – but he doesn't know if she's listening.

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_next: "white-out"_


	11. ten for ten:::whiteout

_**white-out**_

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She is floating, not soaring any longer – somewhere beyond pain and beyond sensation. She can't feel her limbs.

She hears a voice, dimly – it is faint over the roaring in her ears. She knows this voice. So she opens her eyes a little more, fixes them on two silver moons dancing in front of her, blazing at her, filling her vision. She tries to smile at them but coughs on a sudden upwelling of blood – the moons narrow into crescents, and she feels herself being clutched more tightly. A hand gently dabs at her chin with a scrap of cloth.

She turns her head a little more to see his face, to fill her eyes with his. And when she drifts off it is not into darkness, but into a silver light like his eyes.

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_next drabble: "gamble" _


	12. ten for ten:::gamble

_follows from previous drabble, "whiteout"_

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**gamble**

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There's nothing they can do, they tell him, tell everyone. She's too far gone. Her brain has been oxygen-deprived for too long, nerves have died, centers have shut down. Gai does not cry – he clenches his fist and then slams it into the wall, cracks spider-webbing out as though the material were glass rather than three-inch-thick concrete. Lee is crying enough for the both of them – not loudly, not dramatically, just tears sliding down pale cheeks as his throat works convulsively.

Neji stands there and calls the doctors liars.

He rails at them, asks them why they don't try to help her, don't cast the regeneration jutsus, the healing chakra. He is the cousin of medic-nins, he knows Tsunade's apprentice; he knows what they can do.

The older doctors roll their eyes (and Neji notices, and remembers who they are) or they are annoyingly sympathetic and soothing and understanding. But one of them is young, and frustrated, and he has nightmares about the patients who die under his hands, and he fears that the pale girl with the wavy brown hair will join his nightmares. So he shouts back at Neji, who is being hauled back by his teammates. (Lee is the calm one, and Neji is the wild one, and Gai is the angry one – there's something so wrong with this, and it'll go only more wrong unless _she comes back)_

"We tried, don't you think we _tried?_ We just can't…can't…we're not Lightning, we don't have the technology!"

And Neji, being pulled away by the others just as the older doctors are turning on the younger, silencing him, realizes what he has to do.

He steals her away from the hospital that very night.

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_next drabble: "sincerely yours"_


	13. ten for ten:::sincerely yours

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**(_sincerely yours_)**

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White-eyes, 

Hope this finds you well.

You've been declared missing-nin by the Council of Elders. They've got you on charges of kidnapping, desertion, dereliction of duty, and treason by way of revelation of Village secrets to the enemy. Your uncle tried to block it – Tsunade too – but they were overruled. Tsunade said that the Hyuuga on the council seems to really hate you – he spit when he said your name.

(_Hidoki, Neji thinks, and tightens his fingers on the paper) _

Everyone's really worried about you, especially your cousin and your teammates. But we understand. Lazy-ass thinks we might be sent on a mission to hunt you down. He also says that he's already got a demonstrable failure rate of hunting down missing-nin.

We hope your (scratched out) dragon gets better.

Watch yourself.

Sincerely yours,  
the rookies

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_Next drabble in series: "running"_


	14. ten for ten:::running

_Continues from 'Sincerely Yours'.  
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**running**

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They're fighting in low voices, because Tenten has just recovered from a coma and Neji is still scared and because they're in a hospital – Neji had seen no reason to take a room of his own, since he spent all his time beside Tenten.

Until now.

He's trying to say goodbye to her; he's shown her the letter from their friends, she knows what it means. But somehow she thinks that it includes her.

Neji's trying to explain: _he's_ the kidnapper, she's just the victim, hell she was _comatose_ so she has no responsibility for his actions. She can go back. She _should_ go back. She's shaking her head and refusing and Neji is growing frustrated.

"Don't you know what that means? They're going to _find_ me – even if they'll never _catch _me, they'll know! You'd be declared missing-nin too!"

"I don't care!" she shouts back, her voice rising despite herself, and Neji is shocked to see she is crying. "How can you ask me to – to _leave you_? When it's all my fault you had to go? When I...I…"

Neji shakes his head. "It wasn't your fault. I made the decision. I…"

"Do you want me to go?"

The thought of never seeing her again makes Neji's stomach clench painfully. But he nods. "Yes."

Tenten flinches, and Neji wants to kick himself. But then she raises her eyes to his, and they're shining with determination. "I don't care."

She's grabbing at him now, curling her fingers into the fabric of his cheap shirt, refusing to let go. "If I'm not with you…"

"Tenten…"

"If you send me back to Konoha, I'll run away to look for you."

Neji's breath catches in his throat. Then he reaches up, slowly, and pries her hands loose from his shirt. She resists at first, only to slacken immediately as she feels him intertwine his fingers with hers.

He shakes his head, and his voice is wearily accepting. "Alright." He squeezes her hand, and she squeezes back. "I guess we're both on the run, then."

"Running together is more fun than running alone." Tenten's smile is brilliant now, and Neji is deeply, guiltily happy that she is refusing to leave. "That's what Lee always says, you know."

"I notice you never accompany him for the full three thousand laps, though."

"Well, he's got Gai-sensei. He'll be all right – they'll be all right." She squeezes his hand again, and Neji can't help the little shiver of happiness. "_We'll_ be all right."

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_end_

_Last of the linked drabbles, though I might write more drabbles for this universe - that is, Neji and Tenten on the run - later. _


	15. ten for ten:::strangers

_oneshot for the 'ten for ten' themes. not connected to the other six linked drabbles. **  
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_**we might as well be strangers**_

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Tenten looks at herself in the mirror, rather impressed. Henge seems like it should be the end-all jutsu in regards to infiltration, but as a matter of fact its illusory status – no use Henge-ing into a child if your head still keeps bumping on low ceilings – and the increasing number of ways to detect Henge-usage makes it a risk on high-class missions. So people have been turning back to older, more basic ways of disguise, to actual physical alteration.

Tenten thinks the Konoha "beauticians" (the informal nickname that none of the four suspiciously metrosexual men really protest against, despite their status as high-level infiltration-specialists) have really outdone themselves this time. Her dark hair has been dyed to an entirely natural-looking strawberry-blond – complete with sunstreaks of lighter color, to go with the artificial suntan they've given her already bronzed skin – and curled and styled so that even though they haven't trimmed off more than an inch off the ends, it looks much shorter than it really is. Her eyes are now startlingly blue – rather like Uzumaki Naruto's, she thinks, examining them in the mirror – and the makeup they applied somehow makes her cheekbones look higher, her nose thinner, and they've stuck in a mouthpiece that alters the shape of her jaw. They've padded her dress subtly, for curves rather than the wiry leanness of a taijutsu-oriented kunoichi.

She looks nothing like herself.

She turns at the sound of footsteps on the wooden floor, sees Neji standing at the doorway. He looks different too; silver eyes hidden behind dark shades, skin given an artificial suntan, like hers though lighter; and _his_ hair had had to be cut. Now it's short and flares out at the nape of his neck, and if it weren't chestnut-colored instead of raven, she would be struck at his sudden resemblance to Uchiha Sasuke.

She smiles gently at him, trying to distract him from sulking over his entirely unwanted but necessary hair-cut. "Wow, we look different, don't we, Neji?" Her voice is slightly slurred – more like a foreign accent than a remnant of intoxication – over the mouthpiece.

She turns back to the mirror, watching him come up behind her. She admires the cut of his western-style suit – and how it hangs off him - for a moment, using the novelty of it as an excuse to feast her eyes.

"We might as well be strangers."

She jumps as he rests his chin on her shoulder, shivers as he presses a kiss against the side of her throat.

"No," he mumbles, and she feels the vibrations of his voice on her skin.

"We'd always know who we are."


	16. ten for ten:::razorblade kiss

_oneshot drabble for 'ten for ten' themes challenge. _

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(_razorblade kiss)_

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It's a calm summer evening, balmy, stars faint and twinkling in a blue-violet sky. The breeze is welcome on their sweat-soaked bodies, a cooling for the aftermath of physical activity. They clean up in silence, content with the chirping of the grasshoppers and the rustling of the leaves for a backdrop of sound.

Neji finishes first, as usual, because _he_ doesn't use several hundred weapons in a spar. He seats himself in a lotus position and begins a basic meditation sequence – calming his breath, suppressing his chakra, letting his consciousness drift. At the edge of his senses he is aware of Tenten moving, humming softly to herself as she gathers up her fallen blades.

Suddenly she straightens, gives a soft cry. He is up and leaping for her before he takes his next breath, his eyes snapping into Byakugan as he scans the area for attackers. He realizes there is no one else around for at least eight hundred meters just as Tenten begins saying she was alright, she had only cut her finger on a blade…

She explains this with the injured finger in her mouth, sucking on it, and Neji's throat is suddenly very dry.


	17. sasuten:::the line

**Title:** The Line  
**Day/Theme:** April 25 / Heaven sent  
**Series:** Naruto  
**Character/Pairing:** Sasuke/Tenten (kinda)  
**Rating:** G  
**Notes: **Crack, humor, bit of cameo

_

* * *

Setting: right as Lee slams Sasuke before the first Chuunin Exam._

Team 7 looked up as a infuriated shout of "Lee!" echoed through the room. The pale-eyed boy and the girl with the buns - Rock Lee's teammates, they recalled - stood watching them from above. The boy had his arms crossed, a disdainful expression on his aristocratic features; the girl, fists clenched around the railing, was leaning forward, her face angry.

"Lee!" she yelled again, "You KNOW Gai-sensei said never to use that technique casually. And WHAT ABOUT OUR EXAMS?" She leaped down, landing lightly on the ground before flashing to the apologetic-looking Lee, shaking him roughly while scolding him in a loud voice. "WHAT ABOUT THE EXAMS, LEE?!"

Sasuke stared with eyes that whirled lightly.

Lee had beaten him.

This girl was tossing him around. (Nice form with the baseball bat, and _where _had she pulled it from?)

Therefore girl strong.

His Sharingan eyes sparkled. At last Heaven had answered his prayers, had sent him someone worthy. Heaven had sent him someone he could use The Line on, finally!

With a flicker of motion he was on his knees in front of the girl, causing her to freeze with her green-clad teammate being hoisted into the air by a slender arm. All five of the other genin stared at him.

"O beautiful one," Sasuke murmured, in his deepest tones, trying his best to match the inflection from the television series. "Would you do me the honor of bearing my children?"

* * *

Because Sango and Tenten could get on so well together. And Miroku and Sasuke have similar goals.


	18. hyuugatwins:::lingering affection

**So last chapter was angsty. This one is just - not. Inspired by crackish RP with ditaykan. :)**

* * *

_The wayside magic, the threshold spells,  
Shall soon undo what the North has done  
Because of the sights and the sounds and the smells  
That ran with our youth in the eye of the sun_

** -**Kipling

* * *

In the new era that was the reign of the Godaime Hokage, there were factions and there were alliances; there were those who opposed her openly, and there were those who tried to sabotage her from the shadows; and there were those who were her partisans and her support. 

Somewhat to everyone's surprise, Hyuuga Hiashi - and, therefore, the clan he was head of - was foremost among Tsunade's supporters.

The reasons for this unexpectedly strong loyalty were unknown, but much speculated upon. Some said it was because of Hyuuga Hiashi's attempts to reform the clan - the more liberal, modern policies Tsunade was attempting to push would help him in that.

Some, more cynical than others, said that it was simply _realpolitik _- Hiashi having decided that an alliance with Tsunade would be the best chance for him to wield power outside his clan. They spoke of how Hyuuga Hiashi's daughter and nephew were among Tsunade's band of favored ninja. Many speculated wildly on more exciting theories, such as Hiashi blackmailing Tsunade via her mysteriously-uncollected-upon piles of gambling debt; or Tsunade beating Hiashi into submission; or on mutual, secret plans to rule Konoha without the Council.

What no one remembered, of course, was a far more -- _amusing _truth. Then again, Hyuuga Hatarou was an old man, and it was entirely possible that he was the only one left who _could _remember. After all, it took an uncle to remember his nephew's childhood in such detail...

...to remember a famous team of chuunin, assigned a C-class mission to guard/baby-sit the five-year-old twin sons of the Hyuuga head. And how the twins had accepted no other baby-sitters but the three students of Sarutobi after that. 

To remember Hiashi and Hizashi fleeing, wailing in high-pitched stereo, from an incensed Jiraiya (whose white hair was now golden-brown and sticky thanks to their antics - and a jug of maple syrup) into Tsunade's protective arms.

To remember the twins hanging, enrapt, on every word Tsunade told them, and how the accounts of her team's missions were the closest thing the boys ever got to bedtime stories.

To remember the boys planning - and executing - an elaborate prank on Orochimaru after the young genius said something degrading to his kunoichi teammate within the Hyuuga twins' hearing.

To remember a dozen such incidents, the twins' outright worship of their female caretaker and the more adversorial - good-natured on Jiraiya's part, less so on Orochimaru's - relationship with her male teammates; birthday presents from the golden hime and the grinning toad-sage; Hiashi and Hizashi racing to show Tsunade their hitai-ate when they graduated from the Academy.

To remember that Tsunade of the Sannin had been Hiashi's (and Hizashi's) first crush, and that really - Hatarou smiled at the council-table, watching Hiashi, and his enemies wondered and squirmed at the smile - really, it was no wonder he was delighted to accept her as his Hokage.


	19. hyuugatwins:::a single sword

_**Sequel to **_**'Lingering Affection'**_**. Originally meant to be the next chapter of '**_**Progeny**_**', but then it veered off into a ramble a little about Hiashi , more about my wonderings about Konoha politics, and not at all about Neji, Tenten, and their new family. Probably some of this will end up there, though.**_

* * *

_Tie in a living tether  
The prince and priest and thrall,  
Bind all our lives together,  
Smite us and save us all;  
In ire and exultation  
Aflame with faith, and free,  
Lift up a living nation,  
A single sword to thee._

-GK Chesterton

* * *

To the surprise of many – and the intense dismay of a certain few – Hyuuga Hiashi had become, for all intents and purposes, the Hokage's chief counselor. Tsunade had been long away from Konoha, and in any case the petty squabbles of the villagers had never interested her – a fact which had cost her dear, on occasion, during her reign as the Hokage. 

On the other hand, Hiashi had cut his teeth on the seething tensions between the two Houses of his Clan, forced to maneuver between his twin brother and his father. In the end, it had proven impossible to keep the balance, but he had tried, which was more than could be said for many other Main House members. Later, as the youngest Head that his Clan had ever known, he had steered the Hyuuga to its current position as undisputed highest of the clans – this in the face of a belligerent, numerically- and, frankly, militarily-superior Clan Uchiha, with its huge advantage of having a stranglehold on the Military Police; in the face of demon-attacks; in the face of two great wars, and in the face of especial, raids-launching enmity from the Cloud.

All this political acumen he had placed at the disposal of the Hokage, who was forced to admit that she needed the help. Hiashi advised her as to the ever-shifting situations and motivations of the various Village factions; looked over and helped draft contracts and treaties; much to Shizune's delight, he helped her prod the Hokage into productivity when the Sannin was inclined to be lazy. (His cool, unblinking stare made a potent complement to Shizune's hounding). On occasion, he could even be coerced into representing Konoha in high-level negotiations, proving himself a shockingly charming diplomat when necessity demanded – though, he once warned the Hokage testily, he could only put up with "blathering, useless, _dull-eyed_…CIVILIANS!" for a limited time before he went mad.

(The diplomatic staff, it was soon discovered, conspired wildly in order to limit his exposure to no more than thirty minutes at a time. They feared for the civilians' safety otherwise.)

Once, the daimyo's own favored counselor, watching Hiashi smoothly direct the Konoha contingent to the quarters assigned to them for the yearly conference between the ninja and their daimyo, asked Tsunade if the other clans did not resent the Hyuuga for their proximity to the Hokage. His own success as the daimyo's prime minister depended largely on his famous neutrality, as he was completely unconnected to any of Fire's noble families.

"Not at all," was the Hokage's astonishing reply. "They're quite happy with him, in fact."

Then she was called away to consult with the daimyo's chief physician, so the flabbergasted official could not press her for an explanation.

He wondered about this strange answer all the way until the next morning, when he happened to catch the Hokage and her chief counselor sparring in a deserted palace courtyard. The two ninja were mere blurs as they darted about the area, and from what the daimyo's minister could see, Hiashi was trying his utmost to defeat her – he made no allowance for either Tsunade's gender or her position as his leader. For a daimyo to spar at all with any of his officials, much less spar in _earnest_, was completely unthinkable – but then, the official reflected, these were not civilians – these were _ninjas._

And their clans, he realized, pursuing this thought, were also ninjas, and not civilian nobles. They expected to be sent into combat; they expected to be called upon to defend their Village. And weakness in their neighbors meant increased strain on the remaining clans – a greater chance that _their_ clan members would be the ones sent out to die. And Konoha had enough enemies prowling outside their walls that they could not afford to make enemies of the people inside them.

Hiashi, in other words, had realized that strengthening the other clans contributed to Clan Hyuuga's well-being, if not outright survival. And he had got this view accepted among the other clans, that they were stronger if Konoha was stronger. Which was very true for shinobi.

The official could wish for the nobles to share the same cooperative point of view. Then again, the thought of nobles able to kill at a touch, breathe fire, or transform into giant two-headed dogs was chilling.

Perhaps that was another reason for the harmony between the clans. One tended to think more carefully about moving against one's neighbors when one's neighbors were shinobi.

* * *

Next drabble: '**Atavan Halen', **sequel to '**Thanks for the Memories' **

_"I'm not going home alone,  
because I don't do too well on my own."  
_


	20. nejiten:::mine

**Title: **Mine  
**Genre: **fluff, even a smidgen of actual fighting  
**Fandom: **Naruto  
**Characters: **Neji, Tenten  
**Rating: **T or PG-13  
**Notes: **Written for the **ten for ten** themes at **nejiten**. I honestly didn't know it would go this long; it was only supposed to be a drabble!

Yes, I know, I know, yet another putting-off of the sequel to 'Thanks for the Memories', which is complete in PLOT, but not complete in BEING WRITTEN DOWN. Sorry!

* * *

_**mine**_

_n 1_: excavation in the earth from which ores and minerals are  
extracted  
_ 2_: explosive device that explodes on contact; designed to  
destroy vehicles or ships or to kill or maim personnel

_v 1_: get from the earth; of ores and metals  
_ 2:_ lay mines; "The Vietnamese mined Cambodia"

_adj_. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.

* * *

Their mission is a hunters' mission - a contract to run down a missing-nin, a rogue from Kiri, a man who specialized in explosives and bombs. Tenten is viciously glad for the chance to go up against him, to test her own skills against someone like herself, and this makes her reckless. Between the two of them they lace a stretch of desert-land with explosives of every kind, ranging from landmines to launched grenades to fireworks that went off to indicate position, until Lee and Gai and Neji – following in Tenten's wake, more often than not – are as afraid to trigger Tenten's traps as the missing-nin's; they walk gingerly over the rocks, and stop flinching at loud sounds because they have become so common. 

Team Gai corners him in a long narrow canyon, near the mouth of a large cave; he crouches, as dusty as they are but in even worse condition, bleeding from the corner of his mouth, left arm hanging useless, clothes torn.

Gai advises him in a grave voice – like a man concerned for a self-destructive acquaintance – to give up, while Lee and Neji quietly begin to encircle him. Tenten quivers, tense, beside Gai, who keeps a hand on her shoulder to make her stay still.

The missing-nin sneers at them, spits defiance; a sad defiance for the blood and the exhaustion, but defiance nonetheless. And then he lifts his right hand – and Tenten catches the glitter of metal in it, and realizes what it is– and he is throwing it at them…

She does not think, just moves. A quick-flung kunai hits the scavenged mine with a clank of metal against metal, redirecting it back towards the missing-nin, while Tenten herself flashes forward. Neji and Lee are moving too, and Gai is yelling, and then there is a loud noise and a wave of pressure, and then…

…darkness.

But only for a little while, and then Tenten is rolling to her feet, shaking herself all over like a wakening foal to reacquaint her body with motion and to make sure nothing has broken. She can feel the weapons strapped to her body as she shakes herself down – the spring-loaded sai on her forearms, the collapsible bo-staff nestled in the small of her back, the folded _bolo_ knife on her right leg and the thin whip coiled around her left thigh – all still snug against her limbs in their leather holsters; she takes comfort from that.

She coughs as she takes stock; the air is filled with dust, looking like a pale grey mist even in the dimness. As her pupils dilate and adjust to the lack of light, she can see that the mouth of the cave is almost completely blocked off with rocks and rubble, some small streams of pebbles still cascading down as the rocks settle into place. There is still a tiny opening left unblocked in the corner, through which a shaft of dusty sunlight shines.

The miniscule amount of light is enough to let her see that there is someone else in there with her; a white-robed boy sprawled onto the rocky floor.

"Neji!"

She quickly reviews the last few moments, replaying their positions and extrapolating motion from that. Lee and Gai are (she hopes) safe on the other side of the rock-wall, and Lee should have been able to tug the missing-nin with him. She had knocked him towards Lee, after all. And Neji…

Neji must have shoved her into the cave. She kneels beside him, quickly running her hands over him to check for injury. Her heart skips a beat at the tell-tale wetness near his temple, but there are no broken bones and no other wounds; his pulse is steady. And the gash is shallow, her searching fingers tell her – she uses her extra wrappings to bandage it. That is, after all, what she carries them for.

Neji comes to life as she finishes bandaging him, eyes flashing open.

"T…Tenten?" he coughs, choking on the dust-filled air.

"I'm here." She helps Neji sit up. They turn their heads as they hear faint shouting coming in through the tiny opening.

"NEJI! TENTEN!"

"We're alright, Gai-sensei," Tenten yells back, as she and Neji scramble to their feet and press as close as they can to the opening.

In a short while they've established a plan; this is not the first time half the team's been stranded somewhere, though their first time in an abandoned mine. Lee and Gai will take the missing-nin to the nearest town, where they will secure him and then ask some of the miners to help dig Neji and Tenten out.

In the meanwhile, the two are to get as far back from the entrance as possible; it is entirely possible that the entrance will rockslide.

Lee and Gai leave after that, and Tenten and Neji are left alone in the cave. She cocks her head to the side.

"Listen – I think I hear running water," Tenten says, getting up to go. Neji catches at her arm.

"Wait."

"Gai-sensei _said_ we should get back from the rubble, Neji," Tenten explains patiently. "And if it is running water – sometimes these old mines have springs in them – we could use it to refill our canteens, wash that wound of yours…"

Neji grumps but agrees. The dust has settled so he can use the Byakugan to see in the increasing darkness; by long-standing agreement he takes Tenten's hand and leads her through the cave. Tenten follows _exactly _in his wake – stepping where he stepped, because there had been times when not doing that meant slipping off the side of a ledge or triggering a trap hole, having to stretch her legs to match his longer stride – and begins to form a mental map of where they are going. Tenten has extremely good spatial awareness – it is part of what makes her such a good targeter – and even though she needs Neji to lead her, after this she will be able to get back on her own.

Neji stops, and Tenten bumps into his back before she can stop herself. "Sorry," she mumbles, rubbing at her nose.

Neji does not show he noticed. "There is a small rock pool here," he says, and dips her hand into ice-cold water. Tenten shrieks at the sudden wetness.

"Ahh!" She pulls her hand out of his and shakes it furiously, glaring at Neji's general direction – who is, she is sure, smirking. "Next time warn me before you do that!"

Neji is silent. Smirkingly so.

Tenten huffs in annoyance, but lets it go in order to attend to more pressing matters. First, now that they've come to what could be a base of operations – as much of one as they'll get in a cave – she takes out a wad of treated paper and lights it with a rudimentary fire jutsu. The paper does not flame up; it smolders, like an ember, casting a dull red-yellow glow - it should burn for about an hour or so. She sets it on a dry ledge.

Now with a source of light, meager though it is, she unclips her desert-class flask from her belt and fills it with water, dropping a water purification tablet into it when she's done. Theoretically, the tablets are supposed to be tasteless; in actuality, they leave a faint metallic aftertaste. Luckily, Tenten likes it. She screws the lid back on and shakes it well, waiting the requisite two minutes before the water will be safe to drink.

Neji, she sees, has filled his flask as well, but is patting himself down. She watches him for a moment before realizing she is enjoying herself. She shakes her head, then asks: "Don't you have any purification tablets?"

"No," Neji grunts as he turns his pockets out – they are empty, even of lint. "They must have fallen out."

Tenten sighs. "Never mind. We can share; it shouldn't take Gai-sensei too long anyway." She looks at him, seeing that her makeshift bandaging has gone dark. She steps closer to him, undoes the bandages.

"Tenten?" His voice is somewhat breathless. Poor boy – his wound must be more serious than she thought, if it's hurting him this badly.

"Come on, let's wash that out. You might have gotten some dust and rock particles in it." This is not a suggestion so much as it is an order; in matters of first aid, Lee and Neji had always deferred to Tenten. She needs to save the rest of her bandages to wrap Neji's wounds up again, so instead she uses a kunai to slice off the bottom hem of her shirt.

"Tenten?"

"Sit down," she orders absent-mindedly, as she pours a little water onto the scrap of pink silk. Neji complies, somewhat dazedly. She kneels in front of him and carefully dabs at his wound, leaning in close.

Neji is breathing hard for some reason. She slows. "Am I hurting you?"

"N-no."

Tenten wonders at his uncharacteristically soft reply, but shrugs and reapplies herself. When she is sure the wound is clean, she takes out another length of bandaging and wraps it around Neji's forehead.

(He smells nice, she notes absently as she does so – nice, if slightly dusty)

She's beginning to draw away when he grabs her wrist – it's still on his shoulder, bracing her for balance – and pulls her into him. She stumbles, loses her balance, and tumbles into his lap.

"Neji!" she protests, "What are you –"

And then he's kissing her, and suddenly his breathless words make more sense.

And then things stop making sense at all.

* * *

It is near dawn by the time Lee and Gai have the mine-entrance fully cleared, helped along by a shift of hard-bitten miners who seem almost as enthusiastic about the whole thing as Lee and Gai are. 

They'd left the rogue-nin in the mining town's jail – to be more accurate, in a windowless cell barred by a five-inch thick steel door – metal is cheap in this area, obviously – after they had stripped him naked and searched him for hidden explosives, then chained him from head to toe – with one chain connecting his head _to_ his toes, as well as the other usual restraints – and Lee had finished off by giving him a precise, deliberate concussion. If he is awake when they got back, everyone would be surprised.

Tenten and Neji are waiting for them when the last of the rocks are shifted, squinting even in the dim light. They look a mess – their hair mussed, clothes askew. Neji's forehead is bandaged loosely – Lee _knows _Tenten is better than that, Neji must have done it himself – and they look slightly dazed. Concerned, Lee bounds up to his teammates while Gai-sensei thanks all the helpful miners profusely, infusing his words with the joy of find Neji and Tenten safe.

Lee is talking to them, telling them what they did with the rogue-nin and how they worked through the night and how he had learned a few neat digging tricks. They're listening and nodding and sometimes Tenten even asks a question – about the folding apparatus of the shovels, and then later about the miners' blasting charges –but Lee has the distinct feeling that their attention is not wholly on him.

He realizes that they're both concentrating on each other at least as much as they're listening to him just as he spots their intertwined hands.

And then he grins.

The grin stays on the whole walk back, and it even widens when Tenten stumbles and a helpful young miner moves to offer a hand; Neji flashes between them and fixes the taller, bulkier youth with the full force of a Byakugan glare.

"_Mine," _he informs the hopeful miner, slipping Tenten's arm over his shoulder.

Lee almost dances.


	21. nejiten:::through jealousy

**Inspired by Blooming Cosmo, goddess of all things Nejiten, and her evil plotbunny-spawning abilities, which threw off my one-shot updating schedule.  
**

* * *

_ If She grow suddenly gracious—reflect. Is it all for thee?  
The black-buck is stalked through the bullock, and Man through jealousy._

-Certain Maxims of Hafiz

* * *

They gave their report to the Hokage - and it was a lengthy one - and then they had to give a second debriefing to their clanhead. But as soon as he was able - and much sooner than good manners allowed - Hyuuga Neji had left his cousin to explain their recent undercover mission (as civilian high school students) to her father. He leaped the Hyuuga compound wall, flitted lightly over the rooftops, arrowing straight towards a certain apartment in the Central district. 

Long practice let him easily undo the latches (and traps) and slip in through her window, landing in a crouch on hardwood floors scratched by years of dropped weapons. She was seated at her kitchen counter, clad in nothing but an over-large shirt that reached to her thighs, and her signature hair-buns were tousled and loose - looking ready to spill down her back in a cascade of rich, autumn-hued silkiness. She was sipping tea, and the steam rising from the delicate bone-Yong cup shrouded her face in vague white mist. She glanced at him, and Neji shivered.

On the battle-field, and on the sparring-yards, he could beat her forty-nine times out of fifty.

Here, within walls and hidden from any eyes but their own, she was his utter master.

It had been so ever since Tenten had begun to notice how Neji's heartbeat raced whenever she held him pinned to the ground, or to a tree, or - basically - anytime she limited his movement; the way his pale skin flushed whenever she was subduing him in a fight; the way his breathing quickened whenever she displayed her prowess and the mindset Kiba and Naruto had admiringly dubbed 'hardcore'. And of course, the way his eyes turned cloudy gray-violet and hot, and fixed on her, whenever she came into his vicinity.

It hadn't taken long for Tenten to realize what that meant. In fact, it could be argued she realized it before Neji had.

And Neji loved it.

Now he waited, half-crouched, half-kneeling - head bowed but hungrily drinking in the sight of his Tenten, his mistress of blades, with his Byakugan - and he awaited her command. What would she make him do? Would she be lenient? Would she be displeased?

Would she punish him?

"Oh hello, Neji. Had a good trip?" she asked, casually.

Neji blinked, and actually looked up without being told to. That --- wasn't how it was supposed to go.

Didn't she care? Wasn't she mad about being left behind - again? Didn't she want to hear about how their mission went, how they'd had to pretend to be civilian teenagers, how Neji had fended off his new crop of civilian fangirls (he loved to see the jealous glint in her eye whenever he told a fangirl story; it always meant good things in his future), how Naruto had loved his black Yankee-type overcoat so much he had brought it back to the Village...

It seemed she didn't.

She offered him tea. She offered him rice-cakes and egg-drop cookies. She did not offer to punish him, or let him atone by worshipping her. Neji was confused and increasingly disappointed. He was not hungry or thirsty - at least not for tea and cookies. He wanted - he wanted...

"Oh, I wasn't bored," Tenten answered to his half-distracted query. "I've been running missions with Koutarou-kun's squad."

The cup of tea Neji was holding creaked ominously as his grip tightened.

"He's a very nice guy, Neji," Tenten scolded to his half-scoffing comment on Koutarou, who'd been second in the class rankings after Neji - tied with Tenten, actually, though shinobi and kunoichi were ranked separately.

"Give me the shirt off his back - literally," she said mildly, sipping at her tea. Neji's eyes widened and he took a closer look at the shirt she was wearing.

* * *

The next time Tsunade tried to assign Neji a mission without Tenten, he literally threw a tantrum (dignified and reserved as one could be, but a tantrum nevertheless) in her office and refused to set foot outside Konoha without Tenten beside him - and where he could make sure she wasn't running missions with Koutarou-idiot.

* * *

Heheh. Poor Tenten, inserted in the new ED. At least Neji, when left out of the old Naruto OP, had a reason. 


	22. nejiten:::thanks for the memories

* * *

**thanks for the memories**

_and i want these words to make things right  
but it's the wrongs that make the words come to life  
who does he think he is?_

-Fall Out Boy, 'thks fr th mmrs'

* * *

When she lets herself into her apartment, he's waiting for her - standing with his arms crossed, gaze accusing. She wonders vaguely if he'd stood the whole time, waiting for her, or if he'd sat down somewhere. 

"Hyuuga-san," she says flatly, his name not so much a greeting as an acknowledgment. He's there - that's all that his presence means to her. Just that - he's there. Like - furniture. She goes around him, ignoring his glare, to head to the kitchen and begins unpacking her armful of groceries. "You know, breaking and entering is considered illegal, even in Konoha."

_'Once you said this should be my home as much as it was yours,'_ he didn't say. "Lee said you weren't at home last night."

"Oh, did he come by?" Tenten says, voice light. "He must have wanted to borrow that book on Yong legends I promised him. Well, I'll drop it off at his house tonight, it's on my way anyhow. You can tell him that, Hyuuga." The last is both a dismissal and a command, and Neji bristles.

"Where were you?"

Her head snaps up at his demanding tone, and there is real rage in her eyes when she looks at him. "I don't see how that's any of your goddamned business."

"You were with him, weren't you. You were at his house. You slept in _HIS _bed!" His voice rises, and he's advancing on her, despite promising himself he wouldn't take that tone. He would be calm, cool - but it's so hard to keep calm when he keeps imagining her with _him_, _his _hands running over _her _bare skin, kissing _her _lips...

And his heart clenches into a tight cold pain in his chest when she looks at him with eyes that don't light up for him anymore, tight-clenched lips which no longer smile for him. "And if I was, I repeat, it's none of your goddamned business!"

He grabs her wrist and her eyes flare, spark. He grabs her other wrist as she reaches for a weapon. He remembers this exact dance done a thousand times - spars on the grass, in rain and wind and sun, sparring everyday of their childhoods, always together...

But this isn't a spar, and it's real harm she wants to do to him.

"Let go of me, Hyuuga!"

"...my name is NEJI." '_And I can't let go.'_

"Your name is SHIT to me. And YES, I did sleep with him last night. That's what you _do _with a boyfriend! Do you want the details? We had a nice dinner, he ordered roast duck and we had this sweet dessert wine, we lay down in front of his fireplace..."

Neji winces. There is no blow she could strike him that would hurt as much. "Don't!"

"Don't? Don't _what_, Neji?" She uses his name, like he asked, but he finds himself wishing she wouldn't. Not like that. She sneers it like an insult. "Don't continue? Don't go to him? Don't... _what_?"

"...all of that! Tenten...why are you doing this? Why are you doing this to me?"

"...I don't believe this. I really - I really don't FUCKING BELIEVE this. Doing this to _you_? The whole point, asshole, is that it has NOTHING to do with you! That _I _have nothing to do with you, and I have NO interest - zero, zilch, nada - in altering this marvelous state of affairs."

She wrenches free of him, lifts her hand as if to strike. Neji stands still, does not flinch or move away - not that he thinks she will soften, but that he hopes this will let her work out her anger. He would let her strike a thousand blows if it would make her stop being so angry...

But she does not hit him, only glares and turns away. Now it's _her_ turning her back on _him_, and the irony does not escape him.

"Stay if you like," she says, dismissively, and this light, uncaring tone makes him feel worse than her anger. Her anger is fire, and it hurts - but at least it's focused on him. "I only came by to drop off my groceries."

She goes into her bedroom and begins to change. She closes the door, and Neji remembers when she didn't have to - when she delighted in catching him craning his neck to peek, or using his Byakugan. She'd been so pleased - so goddamn happy - he was attracted to her...

"Please," he says, through the closed door, and his voice is soft and defeated. "It - it wasn't like that. It was just - a night, I missed you, you were gone so long and she was - there, and...I'm sorry...but..."

The door swings open, and if it swung outward Neji is sure she would have broken his nose. She stands in the doorway, and she looks both terrible and beautiful, not both at once but both - being the same thing. He's never seen her in that top before. Did she go clothes-shopping? But she hates that - or she had. Had _he_ bought it for her? Her hair is piled up into one soft chignon twist and Neji thinks it would come down very easily - and feels sick to his stomach thinking about another male getting to take it down.

"Oh! It's MY fault, is it? How dare I take a mission without you, how dare it take longer than a day! Of course I should have expected you to sleep with someone else, what with my mistreating YOU SO." She's spitting by the end.

"No, that's _not _what I meant..."

"...you know, I don't _care _what you meant. At this point it doesn't matter. We're _over_, Neji. I don't even know why you want to get back together. Your family hates me, we didn't even click that well when we were together! And now...we have too much -- baggage..."

"_I love you_!" he bursts out, desperately, the phrase an outburst of feelings and thoughts that have been swirling chaotically in his head for years. He's wondered how she would take it. He's played it out in his head dozens of times.

But this bored disbelief in her eyes is worse than anything he's ever imagined.

"Right." She rolls her eyes. "Sure." He swallows past a hard lump in his throat and reaches out to her again- he HAS to make her see, has to make her understand he was telling the truth!- but she steps backwards.

"All my important stuff is at his place," she taunts him, "So if you want to stay and tear up all my stuff I don't care. I'm insured. Now if you'll excuse me - I'm late for my date." And then she's gone, and Neji's stretching his hand out towards nothing.

* * *

_one-night stand -- one night standoff  
one night, and one more time  
thanks for the memories, even though they weren't so great  
he tastes like you, only sweeter..._

* * *

**AN**

...anyone interested in a sequel? In which she may actually use the line "He tastes like you, only sweeter..." (grins)

Written in basically an hour listening to my new LSS song, 'thks fr th mmrs' which is apparently the cool way to spell "Thanks for the Memories". Just kept it on repeat, wrote whatever came into head, sometimes while half-asleep - I fell asleep on the keyboard as I typed up the bit in her bedroom... I've noted a lot of Nejiten fics where Neji screws up somehow, or dates someone else and breaks Tenten's heart...but always Tenten forgives him in a snap.

I guess I wanted to try out the opposite of that.


	23. nejiten:::atavan halen

* * *

_i'll be stuck fixated on one star  
when the world is crashing down_

* * *

Neji can't decide whether it's a blessing or a curse that Konoha forces him and Tenten to continue working together. Their impeccable teamwork - built through years of training and (he always likes to think) an innate, a _fated _sort of compatability between them - had not been affected by when they had first gotten together, and it is not significantly affected now that they are not. 

Love or hate or desperate yearning do not matter much, it seems - not in the face of fighting styles and tricks and techniques as fitted to each other as a key's teeth to its lock. And their love had concerned the Village elders, but her hatred of him does not seem to trouble them over-much - not as long as they complete their missions.

Over missions and synced jutsu and complementary moves, their relationship simply does not matter -but to Neji it matters more than anything else. It matters so much that without it, his world seems to have been sucked dry of life, of color - of everything.

She was his everything. She _is _his everything.

Not that she cares. Neji watches with burning eyes as she brushes past him without a word, casting him completely from her thoughts now that the mission is over. She disappears around the curve of the staircase.

* * *

_i keep telling myself i'm not the desperate type  
but you've got me looking in through blinds_

* * *

He watches her with the Byakugan - watches, even when she visibly relaxes once she is out of his vicinity. He watches her smile with hungry eyes, even if he knows that smile is not for him. He watches even when the boy - that's all he is, a lazy, smart-ass _BOY _- who has taken his place lopes over to her, and even when her eyes light up for him, and she hurls herself into his arms and kisses him. 

He remember her kissing him.

He watches until Nara Shikamaru has led a laughing, grinning Tenten away, out of the furthest range of his Byakugan, and only then does he notice he has clenched his fists so hard that he has carved tiny crescent wounds into his palms.

* * *

_sitting out dances on the wall  
trying to forget everything that isn't you_

* * *

He does not want to live in the Hyuuga compound anymore. His room had been where she'd coolly confronted him about his infidelity, tore the little kunai-charm he had given her from her neck and dropped it onto his floor, where she had deliberately ground her heel on it, where she had told him that it was over. 

Its corridors are where he sees other white eyes looking at him with cold derisive amusement, malicious pleasure, or - worse - pity.

It is where he has a thousand memories of her.

But there is nowhere else for him to go. He'd been working on getting permission for him to move in with her. Now those papers are tucked away into a folder shoved beneath his dresser. He does not like to see them.

He sits in one of the smaller courtyards, as far from people as he can possibly be. He is trying to meditate - but he is not trying very hard, and he finds it sort of perversely pleasant - like picking at an open wound in morbid fascination - to dwell on her.

She had loved him. Loved him so much, so deeply, so completely that he had never been able to imagine a world where she would have left him alone if she could help it.

A love so deep provides, he was finding, ample fuel for a burning hatred.

He stares at the smooth surface of the decorative koi-pond. A wind picks up and tiny ripples dance along its surface. He can see his face reflected, distorted. He remembers another day, another pond - a picnic lunch in a meadow, Tenten's hand in his, trailing their linked fingers along the surface of the water.

He comes to a decision.

* * *

_i'm not going home alone  
cause i don't do too well on my own_

-Fall Out Boy, 'Seven Minutes In Heaven (Atavan Halen)'

* * *

**AN**

This is becoming a series, weirdly enough. Which means, yes, more to come. Thanks to **nagia **and **ditaykan** (who came up with several good arguments for letting Shikamaru, instead of an OC or Sasuke, be the new guy) for letting me bounce ideas off them.

And no, he is not going to try and make her jealous. It's something a little more..._drastic _than that. :smiles evilly:

* * *


	24. hyuugatwins:::fall for you

_ seems to matter what i do, so i'm saving this for you  
it seems to be the last piece there is  
and you haven't had a chance yet to taste this  
fragments of a life you shouldn't miss_

_o my love, if it's all i can do  
i'll take the fall for you_

- poets of the fall

* * *

Hyuuga Hiashi knows he's a very special child. Not just because he is good at Jyuuken. (_he kills his first man at three.) _Not just because one day he will be Souke, clan head, leader. (_his father reminds him of this everyday) _Not just because he is young and brilliant and regal. 

Hiashi is special because he has Hizashi.

Who else is so privileged to have another _self - _to have their soul taken out and made real so he can see and talk with him? No one. Only Hiashi has Hizashi.

Only Hizashi has Hiashi.

* * *

When they are three years old, they take Hizashi away from Hiashi, and he is furious. And they will not let him go to his brother, and now he is astounded. Haven't they always been together? Have they ever been apart before? Has there ever been anything that touched one but not the other? No, never, never! They were born not even separated by an hour - born, his mother had whispered, with Hizashi clinging to Hiashi's heel. Aren't they _destined _to always be together? How dare they try to interrupt his world so... 

He _feels_ the Sealing, and screams. And he _needs_ to get to Hizashi, _needs _to be there at his side, now, right now, NOW, _NOW, _but they won't let him go and don't they know Hizashi is calling for him? They're surrounding him, trying to hold him down, trying to restrain his flailing limbs as he kicks and bucks like a young wild horse. Hiashi screams in rage and pain, and _knows_ he's echoing Hizashi's scream, only his brother is screaming in pure pain. He strikes out,calling Hizashi's name, and wiggles out of their grip. One man is down on the ground, his heart stopped by tiny, still-chubby fingers, and Hiashi doesn't even _care_ that he's made his first kill.

He runs to Hizashi but it's all over before he arrives.

* * *

Hizashi cries a lot after he is Sealed, because the Seal hurts, because his father no longer looks at him, because of many things. Hiashi doesn't cry - he is angry. 

How dare they grave _their_ mark on his brother's head? As if he was cattle they owned, or a dog to be collared.

They don't own Hizashi.

_He _owns Hizashi.

* * *

He insists on Hizashi being always by his side. If Branch are meant to serve the Main, then he will only be served by Hizashi, who is always and ever his brother. That comes before Branch and Main - it comes before being shinobi, it comes before being Hyuuga, it comes before _everything. _And he will not let Hizashi serve anyone else. 

Once he comes across a Main House child - Hakuro, a distant cousin of some sort, Hiashi remembers - standing over Hizashi and using his new-found knowledge of the Seal to hurt Hiashi's brother. Hiashi is seething as he stalks towards them. The scrawny child, who could never beat Hiashi in sparring and therefore could never beat Hizashi, dares...!? He grabs Hakuro and jerks him around. Hizashi collapses on the ground, panting and moaning with pain, and the sight of his brother - Hizashi, who endured so much with a grin and a laugh - pricks Hiashi into a frenzy.

He ignores Hakuro's babbled apologies, his hands flashing in a complicated series of seals. His education is more complete than Hakuro's, though he is younger. He knows how to do more than activate. He's read ahead in the scrolls. He knows how to do the Sealing.

He presses his thumbs against Hakuro's forehead, and the other boy screams and drops to the ground. Hiashi continues his low chanting, gritting his teeth and trembling as sweat flows down his face, coats his arms in clammy dampness. He strains desperately to complete the rite, and startles as he feels Hizashi touch the small of his back. Then he feels a surge of Hizashi's energy come into him - it's so easy for the two of them to sync chakras, as easy as breathing, and he can finish the rite easily like this.

Together, Branch and Main House heir, they carve the Seal into another child's forehead.

* * *

"I hated him a little when he was born, you know." 

"What, my Neji? What for? You can't have been so mad about the whole diaper incident..."

"Not that. He's...he's the first person you've loved as much as me. I guess I was jealous."

"...in a different way though. He's my son, but you're..."

"I know."

"_Hyuuga-sama! You have a daughter!"_

* * *


	25. itaten:::brown skin girl

**AN**: Unabashed crack. Request from _**yorimichi, **_who also came up with the last line.

* * *

_ I got a lover, a brown skin girl  
She's got a magic of another world  
And every time that I think of her, I'm on fire - fire  
She knows a way, a spirtual flow  
Of making me dizzy like vertigo  
Her cinnamon kisses melt my soul like fire, yeah _

- Santana

* * *

Whenever Uchiha Itachi ran into a Konoha-nin, one of two things would happen: he would either kill the ninja in question, or he would go past them so silently and so quickly they would never even know he was there. Despite popular opinon, the latter occurred more often than the former; it was not a question of strength but of convenience, as disposing of bodies and dealing with alarmed/worried/homicidal, vengeance-driven Konoha-nin later sent out took up time. And if he did have to kill, he did it as quickly as possible. 

It was a very simple response pattern, either way, requiring minimal social input from him. Kill or avoid - very little talking was involved. Very little talking was required in most areas of his life, actually. Which could be why when confronted with a Konoha-nin who would not agree to be slotted into either the 'kill' or 'avoid' category, he found himself at an utter loss for words.

It was the weapons-specialist from the new crop of ninjas, he recalled vaguely - he regarded everyone who had not been ranked before he left as 'the new crop' - the girl from Team Gai, the one Kisame complained about. Because they had actually been able to defeat Kisame - even in clone-form - Itachi had taken it upon himself to look them up. This one trained, if he recalled, with the little Hyuuga. And she had an absolute fetish for blades.

And, it seemed, for him.

It had not been planned, obviously. The girl had been on the road, he'd been on the road - he wasn't in the tell-tale Akatsuki cloak, but in something very similar in cut and covering, if more formless. His hat had been tilted over his face. He had not made eye contact, talked, or tensed.

So when she stopped, stared at him, and then said in a wondering tone of voice, "You're Uchiha Itachi," he'd wondered why. He had walked past hundreds of Konoha-nin without them being any the wiser, and he'd been using a mild genjutsu to shunt attention away from him. How had she...

He'd been curiously reluctant to kill her. He told himself it was because it was Kisame's kill - his blue-skinned partner's main joy in life nowadays seemed to be plotting vengeance against the whole of Team Gai. And so he'd been about to flash away when she'd asked a question that stopped him dead in his tracks.

"...want to sleep with me?"

* * *

He didn't remember very much after that. He hoped he hadn't stammered. He'd stared, he knew. But he didn't remember very much until the astonishingly self-confident girl was pushing him down onto a cheap hotel-bed, ripping the mesh-shirt he wore underneath his cloak off with the help of a kunai. And then he remembered a lot, but not in any sort of recognizable order. 

It was curious that no one had ever thought about it, but then again that may have simply been because no one really thought of Uchiha Itachi as experiencing the same problems and desires as a _normal _person. No one really thought about the fact that he'd left Konoha at the age of thirteen, just entering puberty. No one really thought what it meant for a boy entering manhood to have exactly zero chance of running into desirable females. (who were not slated for assassination or not already connected to missing-nin who were stronger than him)

"...why?" he asked later, his first (rational) word to her. (The cries of lust did not count).

"Well," Tenten answered seriously, considering the question with due gravity as she lay with her head on his pale chest. Unconsciously her fingers gently stroked the outlines of his abdominal muscles, more curious than desiring - still, Itachi felt himself quiver. "...I guess it's because you're hot."

Itachi considered this answer. It was acceptable, he decided, and told her so. The fact that her hand had journeyed southwards and was now wrapped around him, stroking and squeezing, did _not _have the slightest effect on his decision-making capabilities, _really _it didn't.

* * *

They did not exactly arrange the next rendezvous, but when Kisame told him in a grumpy tone that "that damn idiot and his team" had been sighted nearby, Itachi somehow found himself in their vicinity. And Tenten somehow knew he was there. 

And they somehow ended up in another hotel room.

Their next few encounters followed this pattern. The Akatsuki began to notice a mellower Itachi; Deidara, who had meant it as a joke, said that someone had finally "fucked that stick out of Itachi-san's ass, un." Itachi then coolly hit him with Tsukiyomi, forcing him to watch children create stick figures and odd-shaped pies out of his clay - which they colored bright red and green and yellow. The Leader had ordered no even marginally lethal attack on fellow Akatsuki. Unfortunately (for others) that meant, for Itachi, using genjutsu to cook up fates worse than death.

Everyone had ignored the twitching, occasionally screaming Deidara, even his own partner, considering him deserving after that crude joke.

No one thought - not even Deidara - that he had actually hit upon the truth.

* * *

Because he was a genius, he got better. The first time, he'd been a virgin - possessed of natural talent, of course, but still unexperienced. That was manifestly not the case _now_. He got so good that Tenten, laying dazed and utterly sated underneath him in aftermath, somewhat sleepily gave him details that she might not have in her usual state of mind. 

She'd been depressed, she said, _that _day. Because she was a virgin, she wasn't getting any of the really juicy missions. Some misplaced sense of mercy in Shizune - the Hokage, she was sure, did not care and was too drunk most of the time to even notice (a fallen idol was capable of drawing more bitterness than any commonplace disappointment) - made her keep Tenten away from missions where she might be exposed to things too horrible for her virgin eyes.

Why, Tenten had demanded of Itachi, who only blinked in confusion, why should she be denied a chance at career advancement just because her contemporaries were boy-chasing sluts? So she had decided to 'get rid' of this 'career impediment' - unfortunately no one in the Village satisfied her criteria for relieving herself of her inconvenient virginity. It was inconvenient but she wasn't _desperate_. So she had seen Itachi, she had decided there was no benefit in letting him walk off, and she had known there was no way in hell she was defeating him.

So, she decided to sleep with him. He did fit all of her criteria, after all, of which 'being loyal to the Village' did not seem to be one.

And he was so good, she assured him, that she had discovered there _was _a reason her peers kept hopping into each other's beds (Itachi had then assured her he was much better than any chuunin Konoha boy) and decided to do it with him again. And again. And again and again and again...

At that point they had done it again.

* * *

At another time, when Tenten was in a similar state of utter, boneless relaxation, he had asked another question. It had been bothering him for a while - and the fact that it was bothering him also bothered him. 

"Why haven't you slept with your teammate?"

"Lee?" Tenten had yawned, able to project disbelief even through the sleepy-hazy quality of her voice. "He's too much like a brother..."

"No, not him. The Hyuuga brat."

"Oh him?" Tenten stretched deliciously, and Itachi's red-eyed gaze averted downwards. He was still listening intently though. "...he's gay." (1)

Itachi considered this. Well, that was an unexpected piece of intelligence. Then he got distracted by another stretching maneuver of Tenten's and tucked the data away for future use.

* * *

Kisame found out, unexpectedly, when his stalking of Team Gai and Itachi's stalking of Tenten coincided. His outburst of laughter had pricked Itachi to fury and they'd raged together in an unusual battle of pure taijutsu - Itachi too fast to let Kisame at his sword, and too angry to settle for anything but his fists. 

Kisame then pointed out that prior to his 'sleeping with the little bomb-maniac', Itachi would never have allowed Kisame to discomfit him so.

"You're a man, now, Itachi!" he told him cheefully through a busted lip. "Now I can _finally _take you drinking. Thank the gods."

* * *

Itachi, it was discovered, was not a genius at holding his drink. 

"...an'...an'...she only likes me for my body," he complained to Kisame, who made sympathetic sounds as he hid his grin in his tankard of ale.

* * *

**AN**

Unabashed crack, completely OOC. Request from _**yorimichi, **_who also came up with the last line.

(1) Neji: I'm NOT gay.

Me: Well, Tenten doesn't know that, does she?

Neji: And you were saving that song-snip for a lemon about _me _and Tenten.

Me: Well, yeah, but it fit here. So. I used it.

Neji: I demand equal smexy-time with Tenten!

Me: Wellllll, there's the FOIL challenge coming up...but hey, if you like ItaTen, you ought to check out **tealeavesgreen**'s stuff!

Neji: DON'T! ItaTen needs no converts!

* * *


	26. konoha boys:::knife

AN: Very random drabble, spawned by looking for quotes about knives

* * *

Naruto sighed, "Women sure are complicated." 

Shikamaru snorted at him from a little distance away. "They're TROUBLESOME, is what you mean. Really..."

Chouji grinned next to his best friend, and confided in all and sundry: "Ino's mad at him again. Over Temari."

Kiba and Naruto whooped and whistled and made ribald comments; even Shino seemed to smile under his collar, while Shikamaru groaned and scowled at his friends.

"The god of death, the wind, the underworld, the ever-burning entrance to hell, the knife-edge, poison, serpent, and fire - women are all of these in one," Neji said suddenly, idly, as if to the air. Silence fell as everyone gaped at him. Neji took a decorous sip of his tea, then said, again as if to the air. "Or so my uncle says." 


	27. nejiten:::dangers of youth

AN:

Because Neji and Tenten deserve some lovin'. Rated high-T for innuendo.

Edit: I hate the ending, so I'm trying to revise it. Continually fiddling. Who knows when I'll be done.

* * *

Tenten had known that having a relationship with Hyuuga Neji would be...troublesome. (She may have been spending a bit too much time around Shikamaru) She had known not to expect sweetness, fluff, sugar and candy-hearts and bubbles. (She may have gagged, anyhow, if that were the case). She had known not to expect him to be a warm and soothing presence; his method of dealing with her spates of sadness and moodiness was to increase his demands for sparring practice. (This may have been out of some vague desire to distract her; or it may have been that he wanted to get some good out of her emotions by using it to fuel her ferocity.) She had known not to expect him to communicate well - or at all, sometimes - and to make allowances for his cool stand-offishness. 

She had known all this, and had fallen for him anyway, and confessed her feelings in the most unromantic way possible; they were running away from angry Kumo-nin, covered in various sticky substances ranging from mud to blood to some unidentifiable greenish-black ooze, and she was screaming at him in rage. The love confession had been secondary to informing him that he was an absolute idiot, he was supposed to wait for her and Lee, and WHY did she love someone like him, was she a frigging masochist?

He had understood, anyway, and after halting, making a stand, and utterly decimating the five chuunin sent after them, he had hugged her hard and nuzzled into her dirty neck - and she had understood this to be his own confession, in a way.

And so they were now...together. Their yearmates said they were dating; their elders said - with varying amounts of approval - that they were courting. In any case, they had declared to each other their special places in their lives, and resolved to meet all problems concomitant with this. She just hadn't expected...this particular problem.

After all, what with his lack of overt expression, his absolute mastery of his emotions, his cool and detached persona - she had somehow neglected to factor in that he was a teenage boy.

* * *

"Neji! We don't have time for this! Lee and Gai-sensei are..." 

Neji's reply was short, pithy, and made Tenten's face go red.

"I can't believe you! They're our teammates, they're not..."

"Tenten, stop thinking about them." Neji suddenly tugged her wrist. Caught off balance, she stumbled into him, stiffening as he slid his arms around her. She squirmed.

"Neji, let go of - mmph..."

* * *

Tenten was slightly startled to realize that it had been at least five minutes since Neji had begun to kiss her - when she began to lose track of the time, it was getting way too serious. Especially when her other, non-boyfriend teammate and sensei were about two meters away. 

Summoning a larger amount of willpower than she thought she'd need, Tenten pushed away from him, and found she had to lean against a tree - her knees were too wobbly. As she panted for air, trying to steady her breathing, she told herself she was not going to grin because she had put Neji in a similar state of shallow-breathed flustering. (It might encourage him.)

She straightened, and fixed him with a gimlet stare.

"Neji, this has to stop. Lee and Gai-sensei will be getting suspicious and, well, it's LEE. And Gai-sensei. I don't want to have to explain to them that..." she trailed off as she noticed Neji wasn't listening to her at all. Oh, his attention was rapt on her, yes, but it was fixed somewhat lower down than her face...

She realized that somehow the top two fastenings of her sleeveless tang shirt had gotten undone. Flushing, she turned away from Neji's fascinated eyes and fumbled to refasten them.

She whirled back around, her shaky fingers only having managed one, as she sensed Neji moving closer. She backed against the tree. "DON'T YOU DARE, HYUUGA NEJI," she hissed, clutching her shirt closed with one hand while the other menaced him with a stick. (He had yanked her so abruptly off the training-grounds that she had left all her weapons scattered in the ground, in the aftermath of the spar she and Lee had just been engaging in.)

"I..."

She was cut off by a rather less-painful-than-normal assault of hands and mouth.

* * *

Lee and Gai rolled their eyes at each other at the tell-tale sounds issuing from the thicket near their training-grounds. 

With an absolutely straight face, Lee suggested: "Shall we take our youthful training somewhere else? It seems Neji and Tenten are indulging in theirs. Youth, I mean."


	28. ten songs: nejiten

**Music Meme**

1.Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.  
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.  
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!  
4. Do ten of these, then post them._

* * *

_

**Coventry Carol. 3:08  
**  
The snow fell soft and white outside the window; the effect was as if he was being encased in a giant snowglobe. It was four in the morning. He hadn't been able to sleep; neither had his screaming son. The sky was red...not with sunrise, but the red sky at morn that warned sailors of danger...

He paced. Little Shen screamed, and the sound pounded and pierced in Neji's head. Suddenly he wanted to shake the little boy.

Tenten would have been able to sing him to sleep. But Tenten wasn't here. Neither was Shen's twin brother, who died too small to even receive a name. Neji took a deep breath and sang in a voice that was coarse with tears.

_(lullay, lullay, thou little tiny child/ by, by, lully lullay)_

**Arabian Nights - Aladdin OST. 1:24  
**  
How had it come to this? Hyuuga Neji was a prince of China, sent to the rich desert kingdoms of the southern Yong empire, bearing gifts to entice the rulers to trade. But at his first sight of the white-and-gold cities...he and his were overwhelmed by a whirling dervish of desert-bandits, right within sight of the city walls. Their leader leaned down, grabbed his chin in a surprisingly soft grip, and purred as golden eyes examined its prize. That was when he realized the leader...was a girl.

_(Arabian nights, 'neath Arabian moons/a fool off his guard could fall, and fall hard/out there on the dunes)_  
**  
****Just Communication Melody Box. (Gundam Wing OP1) Two-Mix. 3:40**

Tenten examined the music-box. On top of it, an armored figure in white, blue and red spun slowly, its limbs gracefully extended in an attitude of combat, not dance - though one might argue that the two were similar. The chiming, tinny notes of the music-box's song rang in the air. She smirked at Neji.

"Thank you. It's lovely - no - it's COOL."

Leave it to Neji to commision her a present so suiting. No ballerina on top of exquisite carvings for her. Instead, a warrior - with interchangeable weapons! - and a box carved with dragons and hawks. She leaned over and kissed his cheek.  
**  
****Send it Up - Vertical Horizon. 3:38**

They dance about, circle and ring and intersect, feet tapping out a battle's beat. The grass is wet with dew. She lunges - he steps back, dodges, and then goes on the attack when her sword-kata ends. Now it is her turn to step back. They circle and cycle in this way, lunge-stepback, attack-defend.

He steps inside her guard, whirls, grabs her wrist. There is a flash of chakra and suddenly her katana is spinning into the air, knocked out of her hand. It glitters as it catches the light of the just-rising sun. When it thuds back to the ground, blade burying itself onto the earth, there is no notice from its mistress - she is under her opponent, now victor, and she is concerned with things aside from sparring.

(_oh you make me lay down/oh you make me forget i am here)_  
**  
****Dream Fragments - Chrono Cross. 1:34**

Stars glitter overhead and in her eyes. They sit together on a grassy hill, and the air is sharp with the scent of cut grass and pine sap. She's sitting curled up and compact, knees hugged to her chest and chin resting on them as she points out star constellations. Her companion nods and nods, sprawled next to her, but his eyes don't leave her face.  
**  
****Teenager in Love - from Raving Rabbids 2. 3:09**

Hiashi had been laughing at him, Neji was morbidly certain. Hanabi had certainly been, and even Hinata - even his gentlest relative seemd to have been hiding a smile behind her hand. He didn't think his actions that noteworthy... all right, they were a little unusual. HOWEVER, the stupid boy had been asking for it. How dare he lay hands on Tenten? She'd so obviously been unhappy that first time, and surely she'd only accepted his invitation to dance for politeness. She didn't like to dance - right?

He sighed when he reached the sanctuary of his bedroom, uncharacteristacally flopping onto his bed. Well, circumstances had contributed, but he had to admit that most of his suffering had come from his own hands. HE was the one going retarded whenver he saw her - or caught a whiff of her scent - or...

Gods DAMN it.

(_each night i ask the stars up above/ why must i be a teenager in love)  
**  
** _**Honoo no Tobira. (Gundam SEED Destiny Insert) FictionJunction YUUKA. 4:46**

Her first memory is flight. Not the winged freedom of birds, but escape - fleeing a white city, set on an island paradise where dark gold sunsets burnished green seas. There had been olive trees, and two towers connected by a soaring span of bridge - she could remember that. Her father had been holding her hand very tightly as he tugged her towards the ships sailing away from the burning ruin of the harbor, but she kept looking back - they'd forgotten something, she knew - something important - and her last sight of the city before her father picked her up and ran had been the peak of the nearer tower bursting into flame...

She sat upright with a gasp, her skin clammy with sweat. Her throat worked as she gulped for air. Beside her, Neji sat up as well, wordlessly gathering his trembling wife into arms that held and comforted.

"Don't ever leave me," she begged him, a whisper warm against his chest. "Don't ever make me leave you."

She asked him the same things every time she had that nightmare, but she had never told him what had been in them.

(_ red rain pours down on the lamenting earth/ the cry of the wind stirs up dark flames)_  
**  
****Makes Me Wonder - Maroon Five. 3:29**

She draws eyes as she moves, sleek and slick and smooth. Everything about her is sharp - the lines of her dark clothes, the look in her eyes, the weapons hidden up sleeves and strapped onto ankles. Eyes flicker to her - some dart away and more linger, drinking her in. She returns no one's interest - not even the gaze of a pair of silver eyes that once held her entire world.

(_give me something to believe in/ because i don't believe in you anymore)_

**Spring I - Vivaldi. 3:08**

Dance is organized movement, routes and steps and partners prescribed. And outfit, of course - costume, she thought - let us not forget that. She squirmed irritably in her dress. The red silk of the actual garment, modeled after the qipao dresses of her own Yong empire was not so bad, strictly speaking. But the corset was a killer. She tried to concetrate on breathing and dancing, not only one to the exclusion of the other. Poor Neji's feet must have been rather sore by now...Lightning TAKE whoever thought up formal dances, anyway.

000

Yes, the corset was a killer - Neji agreed on this. But they disagreed on how it was knocking people dead. He was glad she was distracted - she may not have liked where his eyes were wandering.

**If I Could. Jack Johnson. 4:26**  
Rain pattered on the window-glass, setting up a soothing rhythm. The sky was gray, but a soft gray - like soft blankets and a baby's greyish eyes and downy feathers. The odd comparison floated in Neji's mind as he lazed about in bed, watching the rain on his window. The rain seemed to be justifying his decision to lay in bed that whole day. Well, that and...he looked down at the slender figure breathing softly in his arms, curled up close to him, and rubbed a milkpod-soft lock of hair in between thumb and forefinger.

(_you know that i would now / if only i could) _  
_  
_


	29. nejiten:::valentine

_**Heh. Written for Valentine's Day. Ahh, it's been a while since I played around in Nejitenverse...on another note, I've just discovered that I've written about 6000 pages of RP logs with a friend. Mostly Hiashi-centric. No wonder, huh...**_

* * *

When it came to girlfriends, Neji considered himself the best-off shinobi in Konoha. Of course, he conceded that other males may feel this way - it was in the nature of boyfriends to be biased towards their significant others because of the reason-deadening presence of love. Girls seemed to be angry, in fact, when this was not the case. Even he himself was probably not completely objective towards Tenten...

Still, he was completely convinced that Tenten was the best girlfriend in the Village. He had even made a bullet-list of why it was so. (He'd been trying to construct an argument so as to convince the Hyuuga Council that dating Tenten was good. He ended up just scribbling her name over and over again. Luckily, it turned out that he didn't need to present a case to the Council - they were just happy he was capable of landing a girlfriend. Sometimes he thought he should have been more indignant about that.)

And one of the reasons she was so superior to every other kunoichi in Konoha was this: Tenten was refreshingly low-maintenance.

Neji couldn't help but use that exact term when he thought about it. With her, he didn't need to dress up; he didn't need to bring about half his monthly salary to take her out to dinner - half the time, they didn't even go out. He didn't need to spend time wracking his brain about activities for dates - mostly they trained, and then ate something, then he walked her home and kiss her on her doorstep - secure in the knowledge that they would do the same the next day. It was pretty convenient having a girlfriend whose favorite use of her time was the same as his: training. (Well, and kissing. But that sort of thing was best left to develop spontaneously...)

And he certainly never had to worry about presents. He got her nice practical weapons on her birthday, and got to enjoy watching her use them during practice and battle, and that was it. None of this 'three month anniversary' and 'first date anniversary' and 'third week since our first time shopping together' nonsense that he saw his cousin engaging in. Even Hinata had been seen to be accepting candies and flowers from her boyfriend, Inuzuka Kiba, on a trumped-up occasion - something called "Christmas", he believed, a foreign festival...he wouldn't know, he and Tenten had spent all the day at the training fields.

But then he'd overheard the other boys talking about their presents. Naruto and Kiba were competing over cutest plushie (Kiba's a puppy, Naruto's a fox). Shino was smugly regarding a flower bouquet from the Yamanakas, studded all over with real butterflies, and doing some sort of bugmind-jutsu as he shifted the placement of the brightly-colored insects. Even Shikamaru was whittling away at a deer-antler ornament of some sort.

And they spoke of the ecstatic way their girls received their presents, and Neji couldn't help imagining Tenten rushing into his arms, face alight with joy and grateful pleasure...

He decided that she was worth a little maintenance.

* * *

When Neji decided to do something, he went all out. A few well-placed words soon had the Hyuuga kitchens producing a gourmet picnic lunch - and a tray of well-made molded chocolates. (There was, understandably, a high demand for them around that time. Neji was hardly the first Hyuuga to want to impress a signifciant other.) He also had them pack the good crystal, and the good china, and a set of the fine silverware. Neji had inherited his mother's jewels, of course, and decided that giving a small dragon idol, carved out of deep green jade, was appropriate - he fully intended Tenten to one day be mistress of all his mother's jewels, after all. This was just an - advance. 

Of course he made sure that there was a nice new set of kunai to go along with the present. Tenten had always liked weapons as presents - he wasn't about to stop the tradition now.

(He did not notice that his unprecedented actions had the whole compound whispering and buzzing. His cousins had taken to smiling gleefully at him, and even Hiashi was regarding him with a half-smirk. And the fact that he did not notice lent more fuel to the fire of gossip.)

The morning of the fourteenth dawned bright and clear, much to the relief of many people. Neji had risen BEFORE the sun, preparing the training field where he and Tenten met everyday. He labored in the pre-dawn darkness, spreading the blankets, placing certain scented candles at predetermined points so the air would be pleasantly scented but subtly so. A portable music player was hidden up the tree, with CDs of their favorite classical music ready to play later. He'd already warned Lee and Gai off - well, not so much warned as intimated that he'd be willing to spar seriously against Lee and participate in some predetermined competition against Naruto (who Gai had determined was Lee and Neji's eternal rivals in the way his sensei Kakashi was) if they just left him alone...

He was surprised to feel the warm, twisting nervousness in the pit of his belly. He wanted Tenten to like this. He wanted Tenten to be pleased...regardless of whether she flung herself in his arms and kissed him senseless, as Naruto and Shikamaru claimed their girlfriends did. He just wanted...

He just wanted her to smile.

When she arrived a few minutes later, she'd taken a good look around, then stared at him agape, eyes shocked. He'd tentatively smiled at her - a tiny quirk of the lips no one else would have called a smile, but she should know...

She attacked him.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Neji!" she apologized, for the fifth time, as she wrapped gauze around a gash on his forearm. The katana she'd used to deal the blow lay nearby - well, stood. It had been stabbed through the blanket he brought. 

"It's just - I thought you were an enemy-nin."

Neji just grunted.

Tenten protested - having read that grunt for all its meaning, "Well, you have to admit it was suspicious! It was more like someone trying to impersonate you, reading all your surface details without knowing you. I mean - a romantic picnic? It's - it's not you. It's not US."

"..."

"I didn't even know you knew what today was!"


	30. a tenten birthday

**  
**

_**Happy birthday Tenten!**_

* * *

Tenten's birthday was a simple affair. She had wanted it so. Ever since the disastrous surprise party that had ended with every single guest trying to dodge a frantically-thrown weapon, everyone had seen the wisdom in not leaping out at a weapons-happy kunoichi with a dislike for ceremonies and frippery. No one wore special clothes. Their training sessions proceeded as scheduled. The only concession was that they'd agreed on a small ceremony in the morning , before training - cakes and a song and presents. Actually, Gai had promised cake, but in the end (after several baking mishaps) - what they ended up with was a dozen freshly-baked doughnuts. (from a doughnut kiosk)

"So the cake is a lie?"

But even that minor setback was recieved with cheer and goodwill. And as for the presents - oh, how she loved presents.

Gai and Lee had gone halves on their gift to her, which was a tall teakwood weapons-stand specially constructed for her favorite polearms and swords. They'd carved it themselves, they announced proudly. She'd been so pleased with it that she'd hugged each of them, though her smile turned a bit fixed as they happily told her about how the construction had become a sort of training test, like kicking down trees and literally pounding the wood into shape with fists and water.

When Neji gave her his present, she smirked at him. They both remembered, then, an earlier birthday, where Neji had let her win in sparring and then told her what he'd done as she stood there wondering at what ailed him. She'd ended up not speaking to him for three weeks, until a downcast (and wondering WHY he was so downcast) Neji had groveled at her feet.

The leather-bound book of beautifully-illustrated Yong fairy tales was more than suitable. She'd let out a happy cry at seeing it, and wondered where he'd gotten such a rare artifact. Her enthusiastic thanks was, to Neji, more than ample repayment.

So, Tenten decided happily, it had been a good birthday and a good set of presents...

And then Hanabi walked into the clearing with a present for Tenten - "from the whole of Clan Hyuuga!" she explained cheerfully, as the other members of Team Gai crowded around the girl. Tenten elbowed them away after a conspiratorial glance at Hanabi, and they had to content themselves with watching expressions.

"Aww, that's nice of them," Tenten, already in a good mood from earlier in the day, chirped as she unwrapped the small box to reveal - an envelope? She stared at it.

"Well, go on!" Hanabi urged, fairly bouncing with excitement.

"All right, all right," Tenten agreed, and took a thin sheet of - a photograph? - out. When she looked at what was actually on the photo, thought, she turned bright red and almost dropped the photo. Hanabi cackled victoriously, while Team Gai stared on in surprise.

Well, of course she was surprised! Tenten thought defensively. After all, how many candid shots of Hyuuga Neji just out of the bathroom still existed? A white towel slung low on lean hips, water glittering in camera flash, and... she shook her head and glanced at a laughing Hanabi.

"You still haven looked at back," Hanabi pointed out helpfully.

Tenten looked -and burst out into half-hysterical laughter, trying to thank Hanabi properly through the hysteria.  
_  
_

_'This certificate entitles the bearer to a full twenty-four hours of service in whatever function necessary by the one portrayed in the photo.' _

Oh, the Hyuuga were ALL excellent gift-givers.

* * *

Done! Last bits written while falling asleep, because brilliantly - FF12 ate my homework. Wait, what does that even MEAN?! 

Oh. I meant - ate my ficlet.


	31. hyuugatwins:::gemini complaints

The computer screen gleamed palely in the darkened room, reflecting off the silvery eyes of the man sitting in front of it. His eyes flickered restlessly across the screen, drinking in everything the computer had to impart on him in the form of pixelated data, the clicking and whirring of his mouse loud in the silent room.

Finally, what he saw on the screen seemed to be too much for the silver-eyed man, and he burst out, "We're good-looking, aren't we, Yashi?"

He was directing his words to another man laying in bed behind him, one who looked completely identical to him – save that his forehead was bare, and the one at the computer's was marked with a Caged Bird seal. The twin laying on the bed cracked open an eye every bit as silver as his brother's, sighed, and deliberately answered:

"Are you some kind of woman?"

"But we are," Hyuuga Hizashi whined. "We're damn good-looking."

"You sound like a homosexual. What man cares about things like that?"

"And YOU sound like a bigot. I told you to work on that. Anyway, it's a bit rich coming from you, isn't it? I've seen you preening in front of the mirror so you can impress – ow!" Hizashi clapped a hand over his Seal – not because Hiashi had activated it, but because he'd thrown a shoe at his forehead.

"Yashi-niisannnn," he whined, deliberately, knowing the tone annoyed his minutes-older brother.

"What are you on about anyway?" Hiashi growled, turning over and wanting to go back to sleep.

"I mean – I don't see a reason why people hate us so much!"

"People hate ME," Hiashi explained patiently, "Not you. You're a martyr. I'm the evil ogre who abuses my children – and yours."

"Also," Hizashi added, peering at the screen, "Apparently some people believe you're a pedophile and child-rapist – or sometimes just a pedophile – and/or an idiot who'd lead Clan Hyuuga to political ruin."

"WHAT?!" Hiashi screeched, sitting bolt upright and bounding to his brother's side. "Let me see that!"

As Hiashi indignantly scrolled through various fics featuring him as an evil villain who made Orochimaru look sweet, Hizashi leaned back and mused aloud, "But what I don't understand is WHY. I mean, all they've seen you do is defend your daughter from killing intent – sorry about that, by the way – and then be disappointed in her during training."

"They're civilians," growled Hiashi. "They don't understand being put under military training and conditions, or why it's necess – LIKE HELL I'D GO AGAINST THE HOKAGE SO BLATANTLY! Do they think I'm stupid? It's one thing to be thought unnecessarily cruel, but…"

"Well, I do think you're a bit harsh on the girl, but I don't see how expressing disappointment in her during combat training – it's not like we expect her to only serve tea – equals you wanting to kill her. As I recall, YOU killed OTHER people in defense of her."

Hiashi shot a guilty look at his twin. "…I'm sorry about that…"

Hizashi blinked. "Oh, I didn't mean ME. I meant the Cloud ninja. Hey, have you been blaming her for my death?"

Hiashi hemmed and hawwed. Hizashi frowned at him and clucked disapprovingly, but only said, "Anyway, we'll talk about that later. Anyway, back to my original thought. They like the way we look."

"How do you figure that? We have like ten minutes of screentime. And I look OLD in a lot of them."

"You have a lot of fans you don't know about. And all of them talk about your legs. Nice bit of flashing there, aniki," Hizashi grinned at his brother, whose red face lit up the night.

"And, think about it. We're identical twins, yes?"

"Yes."

"And Neji's my son, yes?"

"Yes."

"And they think he's hot, yes? …I'm so proud of my boy," Hizashi added, tears of joy visibly shimmering in his eyes.

"Yes…."

"Well, he looks like me. A lot like me. And if they like how he looks, and he looks like me, and you look like me, they like how we look. If A is B, and B is C, and so on."

"Bit of a stretch there, but assume I take the point. What brought this sudden rant on?"

"Aniki….we don't have a character filter to our names! Not even a shared one! That damn Uchiha Fugaku does! Hell, those shriveled up old bats do! Koharu and Homura! Why do they deserve one when we don't?"

Hiashi rolled his eyes.

* * *

It's true. Why do they?


	32. sasuten:::nos da cariad

_see its face beneath the glass, it murmurs on the breeze  
like a long black cadillac it passes 'neath the trees  
what is it you're waiting for? sweet love is on its knees_

___go to sleep my one true love,  
and find your heart's release_

_- David Gray, __Nos da Cariad_

* * *

"He's never going to love you like you want, you know."

His voice is dark and soft, like the twilight shadows it comes out of. She can't see him because she refuses to look.

Tenten glares at nothing instead, shoulders tensing, her grip on the kunai tightening until she deliberately loosens her fingers for her usual perfect throw. Her eyes change, focus, zero in. A smooth flick of the wrist and the kunai thuds dully into the exact center of a bulls-eye painted on a strawman, the one where his heart would be – a killing shot – and he continues speaking as if its impact had been a signal.

"You're an orphan and you're a ninja and you don't let anyone in too close. Your friends are your friends but you never let them be family. You'd let _him_, though. You want _him _to be your family. You'd give him everything – even what you hold back now. But he can't do the same for you."

She hauls back the kunai via chakra string tied round its ring-handle, bright blue in the deepening shadows, shimmering lightly with her own particular energy-patterns. The intensity of the brightness fluctuates, flaring a bit at times (in rhythm with certain words) rippling slightly, the only sign of her agitation. She throws the kunai again, this time aiming for the spot between the eyes, a headshot. He speaks over the quiet sounds of her throwing, his voice smooth and unrelenting.

"He _can't_, Tenten. He's already got a family, he's got their brand across his forehead and that's going to be the first thing he thinks of always. He belongs to them, and even if he didn't love them at all –and he does, and that love is older than anything he could give you - that isn't going to change. You will only ever be one of many concerns, and that's not what you want, is it? That's not what you need."

_'shut up shut up shutup,' _she doesn't scream, her kunai going in almost to the base of the blade with the force of her throws. Killing-shots, all of them, every time, and the string as she yanks it back out blazes brightly against the night.

"You'll want his all because you'll give him your all because he's the only one you can give it to. You want your own family, he already has his. He won't understand being alone, he's always had his clan even when he hated it, and he won't understand being each other's only."

"But I do. I would. I haven't got anyone either, Tenten." He pauses, and his voice might have been called hopeful if it wasn't his voice. "I could be your everything, and you'd be mine_. I'd _give you all of me."

"…leave me alone," Tenten says, tiredly rather than screaming in rage as she had that first time he'd talked to her. She leaves the kunai where it is, letting the chakra string dissolve. It's embedded almost to the ring-handle in the heart-target.

Sasuke does, flitting away into the trees that surround their village. Tenten clenches her fists when he's gone and blinks away tears, then and only then, hating him for his words, hating him for always coming to her in the night, hating him for being himself, traitor and thief and kinslayer.

She hates him for his red spinning eyes that see so much (like _his _eyes but never _his _eyes) and she hates him for giving her the selfish jealous truths about herself she never wanted.

* * *

**AN**

A SasuTen for Sasuke's birthday (a little late, as is tradition now), July 23. Well, it's SasuTen now, but a little Neji muse that hasn't been really active lately (was woken by reading **Bergeron Falls**) is protesting and wants his own follow-up chapter to plead his case.

Typed in a couple of hours, though the basic idea has been floating around forever, and the theme of Neji being torn between Clan Hyuuga and Tenten is an old staple o' course. I kind of like playing with it. That bit of camaraderie Sasuke shows in the beginning of the series for Naruto as a fellow orphan has always been one of my favorite moments too, and it had its own role in this.

I just realized that my SasuTen muse feeds on NejiSaku. I hate reading it and feeling sorry for Tenten and then I get to thinking how she and other people (usually Sasuke and oddly enough, never Naruto, who is actually my favorite character) would fit. And that it is starved by good NejiTen fics.


	33. naruto:::like dying suns

Old 20-truths style piece. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

1) When Naruto was a baby, his 'caretakers' treated him so badly they forced him to retreat into his own mind. He spent entire days blankly staring into nothing, not moving except to breathe. His 'caretakers' begin to spread the opinion that the Kyuubi-brat is not only damned and unholy, but retarded as well.

2) Naruto finds something already in his mind when he goes in; it is huge, and it is powerful, and it is colored like flames, and it looks at him with red eyes like dying suns. It makes Naruto feel safe.

3) Too young to have formed a proper self-identity yet, Naruto imprints on the huge, strangely comforting (to someone who has never been comforted) presence. Except that he has only one tail to the Kyuubi's nine, Naruto's first self-image is of himself as a smaller version of the demon.

4) The Kyuubi does not know it has been sealed into a jinchuuriki at first. Unlike its weaker brethren, such a thing has never happened to it before. The Kyuubi thinks it has been imprisoned on sanctified ground, caged and walled by temple-blessings, underneath the ground where the air and sun never reach. It also thinks that the humans found and imprisoned a baby kitsune in with it.

5) The Kyuubi has never mated and never wanted to. Immortal, it has no need to leave progeny behind it. It begins to wonder if it should, as it fills its empty days by interacting with the little kitsune-cub in its cage.

6) The Sandaime discovers the extent of Naruto's mistreatment during a surprise visit. It really was a visit, not a check-up, and so Sarutobi was caught off-guard enough to call the civilian 'caretakers' several truly vile things. His hands are already in the tiger seal before he calms down – or, more accurately, regains control.

7) The Sandaime has to ask the Yamanakas' best mind-healer to undo the damage to Naruto's psyche. He has to make it a degree from the office of the Hokage before the woman agrees to do it.

8) The process to extract Naruto from within his own mind leaves a temporary connection between the seal and Naruto's consciousness. The Kyuubi, wondering how the small kit in its cage had disappeared, realizes what had happened – and who the ''kit' had been – by overhearing the Sandaime and the Yamanaka mind-healer talking concernedly over the now-sleeping toddler.

9) The Kyuubi does not stop roaring in rage for days, bashing itself against its already-proven-unbreakable bars. Naruto reacts by sobbing inconsolably for the same amount of time.

10) Naruto has always felt vaguely uneasy inside his own skin. As he got older, he began to wear more orange, because whenever he looked at his already-suntanned skin he always felt it was too pale and exposed.

11) Naruto moves fastest when he's on all fours.

12) Naruto's favorite food is actually venison. It is expensive, however, and moreover it disturbs people when they see how he wolfs it down, rare as the cook can stand it, so he doesn't have it often.

13) Naruto's always felt uneasy around the Inuzukas. It is an odd sort of feeling – he is wary of them, but at the same time he feels a certain understanding with the wild clan.

14) The Kyuubi can sometimes see out of Naruto's eyes, especially when the boy is very overwrought with some emotion. These moments are the closest thing to freedom it's felt since being sealed.

15) The Kyuubi hadn't been on earth for centuries before it attacked Konoha; it was having enough fun rampaging in the demon-realm. The other bijuu visit earth more frequently because they are fleeing the Kyuubi.

16) The Kyuubi thought it had forgotten the little cub who had once shared its cage during that first year of darkness. It discovers otherwise when Naruto is nearly killed and the Kyuubi sends out shockwaves of its raw red energy to defend the boy.

17) Naruto fought and was nearly killed by Haku, Neji, and Sasuke. He now considers two of them friends and the last as a brother. The Kyuubi, who doesn't know Haku is dead, still wants to kill all of them.

18) The Kyuubi didn't know that it was possible for the Yamanaka-warded Naruto to pass through the seal-gates as when he was a baby. When Naruto draws on four tails of power, they discover otherwise. The Kyuubi daydreams about what will happen when the boy manages more than four tails.

19) When the Kyuubi attacked Konoha, it didn't have much of an opinion on it one way or the other. It was merely in its way. When the yellow-topped speck managed to seal it (when had the humans managed to develop sealing techniques that advanced?) it plotted its vengeance against the Village ruthlessly but calmly. It is when the Kyuubi sees how the humans would treat one of their own that it decides that humans are an abomination that should be utterly annihilated.

20) The Kyuubi is waiting for the day when its vessel will agree with it.


	34. nejiten:::doggy in the window

**AN: **_So I'm supposed to leave for Canada today. But everything is going screwy because just now have we noticed that my passport's about to expire (in five months). So I am quietly freaking out and praying intensely that my non-refundable ticket won't become just useless paper, that I won't be stuck here and miss the start of school, ...shit, I'm hyperventilating. So what do I do when such occurs? I read/write/post fanfic._

_Yeah._

* * *

**_Story inspired by a truly adorable piece of fanart by ToboeLoneWolf. _**

* * *

She'd been thinking about getting a pet for a while now. She was a college student far from friends and family, alone in a large apartment (one whose lease allowed pets) and she was lonely. And her parents, urged on by their long-time friend Tsume Inuzuka, were keen on the idea of extra security in the form of a living alarm system. And, methodical researcher-type personality that she was, she had already invested several hours' worth of reading into the possibility of being one of that wide-spread fraternity of Dog-Owners, looking over breed descriptions, "How To Raise Your Dog" books, watching dog-owners as they walked by with their pets on leashes and trying to see if she could see what they were doing right and what wrong.

But that hadn't felt like preparing for a dog - more like gathering information, for some impersonal report, a duty, an obligation, something to show her parents she took their suggestions seriously. She was lonely, but dogs were so - troublesome, and she'd always been somewhat lonely, only child, somewhat distant to friends. Dogs were big noisy animals who needed to be pampered like children. Honestly, she was leaning towards a cat...

Then she had passed _him_ by in the window and - "fallen instantly in love," her friend Ino, who had been walking with her, said in amusement, later, to anyone who asked.

* * *

He was a gorgeous dog - a dog, yes, near his full growth and not a tiny cuddly puppy as were often displayed in pet-store windows. He was colored starkly in black-and-white, most of his silky-shaggy pelt white with accents of black. The two upright ears, angling towards her as she pressed against the plate-glass, were pure black. He was solid in build, not greyhound-lithe for racing and not bulky either, and tall. He had the smooth economical lines of the hunter-breeds closest to the wolves they had descended from. His eyes were rare, strange, eyecatching - purest silver, whites almost indistinguishable, but Tenten could tell the animal was not blind for the intelligent way the eyes tracked her every movement. He was standing straight and tall as she looked at him, noble in bearing, very still, like a statue of some hero-dog or maybe a legendary hound.

But his tail was wagging madly as he looked at her.

* * *

"How much is that doggy in the window?"

"The one with the waggly tail?"


	35. nejiten:::restrained

Quick drabble tossed together in like ten minutes, so excuse the rushed quality. Based off the Nejiten LJ comm's drabble meme, prompt **Restrained.**

* * *

She doesn't allow the storms of her heart to show on her face - her eyes are always calm and cool and never too bright with tears. Her lips never bare her teeth, never quirk, never curve into grins or scowls. She stands in absolute stillness until motion is necessary - no twitches, no shivers, no shudders. She does not allow emotion to manifest itself visibly.

She is the epitome of kunoichi canon - adhering to the ideals of every textbook on ninja behavior. She is calm and steady and impossible to rouse to unseemly behavior. She is in utter control of each and every aspect of her being. She is dedicated to nothing but the mission - she is swayed by neither mercy, nor fear, nor temptation. She is an embodiment of restraint.

Neji looks at her, and remembers a smiling girl whose quicksilver emotions flickered across her face, and mourns her loss in the absolute silence of his own aching heart. He dares not voice his feelings of loss aloud. No one would sympathize with him.

After all, it was he who molded her, step by step, day by day, into this cool-eyed stranger.


	36. nejiten:::blindfold

**AN**

_Another drabble courtesy of the all-too-awesome meme run by BC at the LJ comm. Prompt: **Blindfolded Neji. **_

* * *

Blindfolds usually didn't mean much to Neji. His Byakugan could render them useless easily. But his Byakugan was not invincible - there were ways to nullify the all-seeing vision of his white eyes, and the enemy had apparently prepared for him. They'd stitched tiny ofudas into the cloth, seals that made it impossible to see through the fabric of the specially-made blindfold. He was as blind as any other ninja, in this case.

It was the Cloud. They wanted another chance at the doujutsu, and they ambushed him and his team on their way back from another mission. They'd overwhelmed him with surprise and sheer numbers and an electricity jutsu to the back of his skull to short out his nervous system. Then they'd tied him up and blindfolded him and hurried off with him trussed like a pig to market.

Despite the unaccustomed darkness, he felt little fear. They had, unfortunately, spent most of their forces to account for him. They had to, of course, but - they'd forgotten to account for his team.

He smiled a little grimly as they abruptly stopped, and he kept smiling even as he was dropped unceremoniously to the ground. He smiled because around him he could hear the sounds of his team beating his would-be kidnappers like they were dirty rugs. He even grinned a little as he heard a familiar feminine snarl, followed by a wet '_crackkkk_' and the breaking-voice scream of a man in severe pain. Oh, he hoped it was the one who'd said things about his father.

And then it was all over, and he felt hands pulling him up to a seated position. The deft way that his bonds were sliced through identified Tenten as clearly as if she'd announced herself. Last of all she removed his blindfold, and grinned at him. He found himself wanting to grin back, despite it all.

"Hey."

"Took you long enough," Neji commented dryly, glancing around at the fallen bodies carpeting the ground.

"Soooo sorry for being slow about rescuing _your _skinny ass," Tenten retorted, only to giggle as he shot her a disgruntled look.

They continued to bicker quietly as they set about tying up the Cloud-nin for a later patrol to pick up (they would bring the leaders back themselves) - a way to re-establish normality again, so Neji could forget about the Cloud and Tenten could forget about being afraid for him.

What wasn't normal was the fact that, unnoticed, Tenten had pocketed the blindfold for her own personal use - later. She grinned to herself again in the dark, and the Cloud-nin she was tying up moaned in fear at the predatory look on her face.


	37. naruto:::storytellers

_For the crown of our life as it closes  
Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust;_

* * *

Mizuki taunts him from above, sing-songing the tale of the demon-fox and the seal and the brave blond Yondaime, and that night Naruto learns the truth of his existence, learns the story behind the hate and the glares and the lonely, lonely life.

This is the day Naruto discovers who is the reason he carries a black sun on his skin.

* * *

Jiraiya pulls him aside and presses a three-pronged kunai into his palm, telling him the tale of a red-haired girl and a brave blond boy and their young, doomed love, and that day Naruto learns the truth of his birth, learns the story of his father and his mother and why he never knew them.

This is the day Naruto discovers he can understand how Neji can blame his own cousin and his own uncle for the burden of _his _seal, how Sasuke can pursue his brother so single-mindedly, understand how a person can bear to hate his own blood,

* * *

Kakashi never gets around to telling him the tale of an older but no wiser Team 7, that he'd once stood where Sasuke stood, that he'd once had another set of blue-sky eyes and sun-gold hair in his team, and another dark-haired red-eyed Uchiha and another stars-in-her-eyes medic-nin girl.

One day, Naruto will discover that for himself, and that will be the day the Rokudaime Hokage forever strikes Team 7 off the roster, banning it as a unit-designation from then unto eternity, and cuts the few remaining bonds holding the last Team 7 together.

* * *

_No thorns go as deep as a rose's,  
And love is more cruel than lust._

- Dolores (Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs), Algernon Charles Swinburne


	38. sasuten:::truth

_Thought made him and breaks him,  
Truth slays and forgives_

- Swinburne

* * *

People, Sasuke discovered, never told him true things.

For example, his brother had told him he loved him. That was a lie.

He hadn't known _then,_ of course. After, when people took him in and spoke gently around the last survivor of the Uchiha massacre, he could tell they weren't giving him whole truths - to protect him, they said, he was just a little boy, a poor little orphan boy. And the girls who squealed his name and said they loved him - that was a lie too, worse than Itachi's in a way because they were lying to themselves _and_ to him.

Then he got his Sharingan, and it was easier to watch people's reactions, to tell what they really meant, and he confirmed that most of the time, what they _meant_ and what they _said_ were worlds apart.

But one day he met a girl who told him the truth.

Not him, specifically. She didn't talk _to _him. But she was _around _him, because her teammates were, and what she said to _them _was truth. For the first time, he'd met a girl whose everything - actions and eyes and tone - matched up.

Sasuke was so struck by this that he began to take an interest in Tenten of Team Gai, the only girl he'd met who hadn't tried to lure him in with (no doubt) fake smiles.

(Even her coloration was in harmony, something that appealed to his aestheic sense. He liked brunettes, and dark eyes, after all.)

* * *

Written in like ten minutes for **TaoEmpress**, aka **Dragonstorm85**.


	39. cup of water

**AN: **Written for a drabble-game in 14 minutes and 11 seconds. Underlined words were the prompts given. Man, I am SO BAD at these characters...

* * *

The Sound Five were warned against associating too closely with their new allies of the Sand - and most especially against going near the youngest child of the Kazekage, the Ichibi Jinchuuriki, Sabaku no Gaara.

Kidomaru being who he was, however, he ignored the ruling and went to see for himself.

He'd heard tales of the red-headed demon-child. He was a holder of _real _demons, not just like the ones Tayuya summoned with her flute, and Kidomaru had always been curious about demons - monsters and freaks and things that went bump into night.

(After all, wasn't he one himself, half-spider freak that he was?)

He did not intend to follow the ruling against 'visiting' the Sand; but neither did he intend to be stupid. He left behind his Sound hitai-ate, and the indigo-tinted knotted belt (Tayuya had dubbed it the 'ass-bow' and the name stuck) that were practically uniform for the Sound ninjas.

The desert night was surprisingly cool, but still bone-dry...Kidomaru was panting by the time he found the red-head. He crept along a cliff-face, not needing as much chakra as other ninjas in order to stick to the rock, and looked down on the small boy. That's what he was, Kidomaru decided - a little boy, small and ...and..._delicate_, even.

He spun a rope of spider-silk and used to lower himself down for a better view. He hung from his thread, upside down and hidden in the shadows, and just - looked. Was this the terror of the desert?

He froze, though, when the jinchuuriki stiffened, and turned, and stared right at him, pale green eyes seeming to glow in the night. Kidomaru felt his stomach churn, and prepared himself for flight - he had listened to Orochimaru-sama's brieifing, he certainly wasn't going to try and _fight_ the kid.

But Gaara's dark-ringed eyes only looked at him, and then at his spider-silk rope and extra arms, and then he -

- used his sand to lift a rough wooden cup of water up to the spider-shinobi. Kidomaru stared again - then took the cup and sipped it, carefully at first, but more swiftly as the cool water soothed his parched throat.

And then, without another word, Gaara turned back to watching the endless sweeps of dune-piled sand, and Kidomaru wisely took off back for the Sound camp.

...it seemed even demons could have fellow-feelings for other freaks of nature.


	40. narupein:::more flies

**AN: **Another very random drabble-game result. Rated rather high, but come on, with the prompts I got, it was impossible.

Warning, slash and truly crack pairings ahead

* * *

Pein was fed up with his stupid subordinates, always unable to capture the Kyuubi. Everytime they tried the results were disastrous. Itachi burned out his Sharingan. Sasori died, and Deidara had his arm blown off. Kazuzu and Hidan BOTH died. And those fuckers were supposed to be immortal!

So he decided. HE would capture the Kyuubi jinchuuriki.

His plan was rather simple. There would no knockout dragdown fight. The kid had incredible battle - luck...obviously the Kyuubi was helping him out.

"You catch more flies with honey than vinegar."

So he nipped into Konoha, cast a genjutsu on him - then proceeded to molest the fuck out of him.

* * *

"Jeez," Naruto mumbled sleepily, as Pein slipped into the indigo-dyed sheets beside him (Pein liked the silk, and had burned all of Naruto's old sheets to make him use these). "Slow down a little, wouldja? It's not like - ah! That hurt! - gods, I swear you have more hands than Kidoumaru did."

* * *

Pein showed up one day, with a can of edible body paint, chocolate sprinkles, silken handcuffs.

"I'm not a pizza, you know," Naruto told him as he carefully applied the paint and toppings to Naruto's ankle.

* * *

When Pein asked Naruto to come along, he went with the leader of Akatsuki willingly. But Pein found he was no longer willing to rip the Kyuubi away from its vessel body.

He'd rather have Naruto than the Kyuubi.

* * *

_All things felt sweet were felt sweet overmuch;  
__The rose-thorn's prickle dangerous to touch,__  
And flecks of fire in the thin leaf-shadows;  
Too keen the breathèd honey of the rose_

_- _Swinburne


	41. nejiten:::paint

**an: **another quick-written drabble, tossed off at 2:30 AM, so again I plead for lenient judgment. This time, the prompt comes from the anonymeme hosted by the incomparable Blooming Cosmo on the Nejiten LJ comm, much kudos to her and the comm.

***

Neji liked to play with Tenten's chakra system.

She couldn't see the allure of it, not having Neji's pale Byakugan eyes; nor could she really believe that her chakra system was, as Neji insisted, particularly beautiful in any way. She rather thought he was biased, if not outright lying to himself.

She didn't much mind, though.

He liked to watch her chakra moving through her body; he liked to do it when her chakra roared through her network like a river in spate, during battle - it was why, or one of the reasons why, he liked sparring with her so often; he liked to do it while she was angry or laughing or any sort of emotional, and her chakra danced and flared in response to her feelings; and he liked to do it when she was calm and at rest, and alone with him, and her chakra shimmered quietly in her like ribbons of some impossibly deep sky.

He would move her chakra about, during those times - when they were alone together, alone and quiet in that way that was reserved for them and them only, when even words were intruders upon their world. Not the sudden, wrenching stoppings and shuntings of battle, but gentle nudgings and coaxings, his hands softly brushing and kneading, using tender skill to cajole her chakra to flow here and shine there, pool here and ripple there....

It felt in some distant, subtle, unspeakable way like being rocked by an ocean's waves, when he did that, and it always made Tenten heavy-eyed and utterly languid. He, in turn, was always awed and fascinated, an artist's pride and a lover's worship for the patterns his actions made in her. Her chakra was his paint and her body was his canvas and she loved it, loved any excuse to have his hands on her bare skin.

***

What do you think? Should I have rated this higher?

And now to bed.


	42. sasutengaa:::cherry syrup

**AN: **GaaTenSasu drabble, written for **TaoEmpress/Dragonstorm85. **

**

* * *

  
**

Tenten came back to the waking world, slowly, stretching and making sleepy little moans as she shook off her slumber. She purred unconsciously as she did so, turning her head when a soft laugh reached her ears.

Lying right beside her, his hair still sticking out in sweat-curled messiness, Sasuke Uchiha gave her a small smile – something that would have shocked anyone else who was not so privileged as to see Sasuke like this regularly – and kissed her. "I love it when you do that," he told her, before kissing her again.

Tenten deliberately purred into his mouth as he kissed her, trying to turn over to kiss him more deeply, but stopped by a warm, limp weight over her. She turned her head again, breaking the kiss to the sound of Sasuke's disappointed huff of breath, and this time she laughed as she saw her other lover, draped over the both of them in a slantwise line, limbs sprawling.

Ever since Gaara had regained the ability to sleep, he had made up for his insomniac years by becoming the heaviest sleeper anyone had seen – even more difficult to wake, Sasuke vowed, than Naruto – and indulging in activities like the ones they had just enjoyed made it even deeper. They'd have to be very drastic to wake him. Her eyes gentled as she reached a hand out to stroke through soft red hair.

"Look at him. He's practically liquid," she told Sasuke, eyes still on Gaara. "Hee. Like...." She glanced at the bright red hair slipping through her fingers. "Like someone just poured cherry syrup all over the bed."


End file.
